Chalukya-Bhima I

Chalukya-Bhima I succeeded his uncle Gunaga Vijayaditya III on the throne of Vengi. J. F. Fleet dated his reign of thirty years 888–918, and Robert Sewell kept those dates.¹² His reign began with the loss and recovery of the kingdom.³ After Vijayaditya III’s time the Rashtrakutas overran the Vengi country, and Bhima had to win it back.³

Family and names

Chalukya-Bhima I was the son of the crown prince (yuvaraja) Vikramaditya I, a younger brother of Gunaga Vijayaditya III.³⁴ Vikramaditya never reigned, and Bhima succeeded his uncle directly.³ Bhima’s paternal uncle Yuddhamalla I was the founder of the junior line that later fought for the throne.³

Vijayaditya IV, called Kollabhiganda, was the eldest son of Chalukya-Bhima I and succeeded him.³ Vikramaditya II, who seized the throne briefly in 925–926, was another son of Chalukya-Bhima I.⁵ A third son, a prince of sixteen, fell in battle in his father’s lifetime (see below).⁶

The grants call him Bhima, Nripa-Bhima or, most often, Chalukya-Bhima.³ One gives him the surname Droharjuna.³ A grant edited by F. Kielhorn in 1899 gives him the second name Vishnuvardhana.⁷ Fleet thought that kings of the dynasty were given such second names when they were formally crowned, and kept their birth name beside it.⁸ J. Ramayya Pantulu knew another grant of his that calls him Bhima-Salki.⁹ Salki is a Telugu form of the name Chalukya.⁹

Sewell’s table of the dynasty numbers him Chalukya-Bhima II, and the later Rajabhima Chalukya-Bhima III.¹⁰ Fleet and E. Hultzsch called them Bhima I and Bhima II, and this site uses that numbering.¹⁴

The wars with the Rashtrakutas

The records of his successors say that the Rattas (the Rashtrakutas) had overrun the land of Vengi, and that Bhima had to win it back.³ One of them names his enemy as Krishnavallabha, that is, the Rashtrakuta Krishna II.³

Hultzsch at first translated the passage as a country “overrun by the army of the Ratta claimants”.⁴ In 1897 he corrected it to “overrun by the army of (Krishna II) the heir of the Ratta (Amoghavarsha I)”.¹¹ In his account of the Rashtrakutas, Fleet set this admission beside the earlier Eastern Chalukya boasts of Vijayaditya III’s victories over Krishna II.¹²

A copper-plate grant of Bhima himself was found in the Collector’s office at Machilipatnam (then Masulipatam) and noticed in 1914.⁶ It describes the fighting.⁶ It says that he defeated the army of Krishnavallabha and his allies.⁶ It also says that “the vile kings of Karnata and Lata” fled before him “as darkness before light”.⁶

His son, a learned and handsome prince of sixteen, fought at Niravadyapura and Peruvangur-grama.⁶ At Peruvangur he killed the Vallabha king’s general Dandena-Gundaya from the back of his elephant, and then died.⁶ In his memory the king gave the village of Vedatuluru to forty-five Brahmans.⁶ The epigraphist identified the Vallabha king with Krishna II.⁶¹³ He noted that neither battlefield could yet be identified.¹³

Sewell gives the same account and calls the prince’s allies the kings of Gujarat and Karnata.¹⁴ The Pithapuram inscription of 1202 credits Bhima with victory in 360 battles.¹¹ Hultzsch took this to mean that he was at war for a whole year together.¹¹

Bhima and his subordinate chiefs

The Chalukyas of Vemulavada were feudatories of the Rashtrakutas.¹⁵¹⁶ Their records claim that their king Baddega seized a king named Bhima in water “as if catching a crocodile”.¹⁵¹⁶ J. F. Fleet thought this Bhima might be Chalukya-Bhima I.¹⁶ N. Venkataramanayya placed the capture in the second Rashtrakuta invasion, from which Bhima soon escaped.¹⁷¹⁸

Venkataramanayya also read an undated inscription at Koravi.¹⁹ In his reading, Kusumayudha, a chief of the Chalukyas of Mudigonda, recovered his lands from Krishna II and helped crown Bhima.¹⁹

His general was Mahakala, the son of his foster-sister.³ Bhima’s grandson Amma I later rewarded Mahakala with the village of Drujjuru.³²⁰

Temple and charity

According to the Pithapuram inscription, Bhima founded a temple of Siva called Chalukya-Bhimesvara after his own name.¹¹ Hultzsch identified it with the temple that still stood at Bhimavaram near Kakinada (then Cocanada), in the Godavari district.¹¹ Inscriptions there call the town Chalukya-Bhimesvarapura, Chalukya-Bhimanagari and Chalukya-Bhimapura.¹¹ Hultzsch concluded that the name Bhimavaram came from the temple.¹¹

A grant of his great-grandson Amma II remembers him as a generous king.²¹ In Hultzsch’s translation, “that handsome Chalukya-Bhima enjoyed for thirty years the earth, protecting (it) like a mother (her child)”.²¹ The grant says that he gave people what they wished for.²¹ It names those who received his gifts:²¹

• “the distressed, helpless and sick”²¹
• “the best of twice-born” (Brahmans)²¹
• “beggars” and “ascetics”²¹
• “clever youths, dancers, excellent singers and poets, who had come from various countries”²¹
• “his relatives and … the blind”²¹

Grants

Only one inscription of Bhima I was known when Kielhorn edited the Bezvada plates in 1899. The plates were found in June 1897 in a rock-cut chamber at Vijayawada (then Bezwada).²²⁷ They record that at his coronation the king gave away a village for ever.²²⁷ They formally grant the village of Kukiparru, in the Uttarakanderuvadi district, to Potamayya.²²⁷ Potamayya was a Brahman trained in the krama style of reciting the Veda.²²⁷

The plates had been used before for another grant of the same king, which was cancelled.²² Their executor was Kadeyaraja, a grandson of Gunaga Vijayaditya III’s general Pandaranga.⁷ Kielhorn noted that this was then the earliest known record to give the full genealogy of the dynasty with the length of each reign.⁷ Hultzsch later took Kadeyaraja to be a spoken form of Katakaraja, the title of Pandaranga’s grandson Vijayaditya.²³

Dates

Fleet’s chronology counts back from the coronation of Amma II in 945.¹ It gives Bhima thirty years from July 888.¹ Sewell recorded a copper-plate inscription that gives the date of Bhima’s coronation as 17 April 892.² Its details did not work out satisfactorily, so he kept Fleet’s date of 888.²

B. V. Krishna Rao wrote about the same record in 1938.²⁴ It gives the coronation as Monday, 17 April 892.²⁴ He took it as proof that Bhima could not have come to the throne in 888.²⁴ He held that Fleet’s whole arrangement of the earlier reigns therefore fell to the ground.²⁴

The editor of Epigraphia Indica added another possibility.²⁴ Bhima might have been crowned in 892 but counted his years of rule from an earlier accession.²⁴ This custom was widely followed in South India.²⁴

Footnotes

1. J. F. Fleet, “The Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings”, Indian Antiquary XX (1891), p. 12, list of kings (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 40 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 103 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

4. E. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), p. 38 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 269 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1913–14 (1914), Part II, paras. 5–6, p. 84 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

7. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions” (1899), p. 128 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

8. Fleet, “Chronology of the Eastern Chalukya Kings” (1891), p. 95 and note 9 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

9. J. Ramayya Pantulu, “The Bezwada Pillar Inscription of Yuddhamalla”, Epigraphia Indica XV (1919–20), p. 156 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

10. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 337 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

11. E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Pillar Inscription of Mallapadeva”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1897), p. 227 and note 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

12. J. F. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts”, Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part II (1896), p. 412 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

13. Annual Report on Epigraphy, Madras, for 1913–14 (1914), Part II, para. 6, p. 85 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

14. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 39 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

15. B. Lewis Rice (ed.), The Pampa Bharata or Vikramarjuna Vijaya of Pampa (1898), introduction, p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

16. J. F. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts”, Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency I, pt. II (1896), p. 381 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

17. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 23 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

18. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 24 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

19. N. Venkataramanayya, The Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 22 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

20. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions”, E, Masulipatam plates of Amma I (1899), p. 131 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

21. Hultzsch, South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I (1890), No. 38, translation, p. 49 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

22. F. Kielhorn, “Six Eastern Chalukya Copper-plate Inscriptions”, C, Bezvada plates of Chalukya-Bhima I, Epigraphia Indica V (1898–99), p. 127 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

23. E. Hultzsch, “Maliyapundi Grant of Ammaraja II”, Epigraphia Indica IX (1907–08), p. 50 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

24. B. V. Krishna Rao, “Masulipatam Plates of Ammaraja II”, Epigraphia Indica XXIV (1937–38), p. 210 and editor’s note (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷