Vijayaditya (Chalukya of Badami)

Vijayaditya was a king of the Chalukyas of Badami, who reigned from 696 to about 733.¹² His records at Alampur, on the Tungabhadra in today’s Telangana, show his care for its temples.³⁴⁵ One of them is among the earliest records in South India written in a northern script.⁵

Who he was

Vijayaditya was the son of Vinayaditya, and he followed his father in 696.¹ His records give him the titles Satyasraya and Samastabhuvanasraya, “asylum of the universe”.¹ By 692 he was already crown prince.⁶ He helped his father in a campaign in the north.⁶

His enemies once led him into an ambush and took him prisoner.⁶ But, Fleet writes, he escaped by his own efforts and made his power firm over all his lands.⁶ He built the great Shiva temple now called Sangamesvara at Pattadakal.⁶ Robert Sewell wrote that he kept friendly relations with the Rashtrakuta king Indra II, and gave him a Chalukya princess in marriage.⁷ Their son was Dantidurga, who later overthrew the Chalukyas.⁷ See Dantidurga.

A grant on the Krishna

As a prince, Vijayaditya asked his father for a gift to some Brahmans.⁸ So in 692 Vinayaditya gave them a village on the north bank of the Krishna.⁸ This grant came from the Kurnool district.⁸ J. F. Fleet took the Vijayaditya named in it to be the king’s son.⁸

The Alampur enclosure

At Alampur, a damaged inscription of Vijayaditya’s reign is dated Saka 626 (704; Saka is an Indian way of counting years).⁴ It gives the family tree of the Badami kings from Pulakesin I.⁴ It says that an enclosure was built at the king’s wish and dedicated to the teacher Isanacharya.⁴ The Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telangana Districts (1973), as summarised in Epigraphia Telanganica, thought that Isanacharya might be a head of the Kalamukha sect of Shaiva monks.⁹

A second slab is set into the fort wall at Alampur, near the steps down to the river.³ G. S. Gai copied it in 1959 and published it in Epigraphia Indica.³ It records that, at Vijayaditya’s command, Isanacharya built an enclosure.⁵ Gai dated it to Friday, 13 May 713, in the king’s eighteenth year.⁵ He noted that the fort itself surrounds the temples called Navalingesvara, of which the Bala Brahmesvara is the most important.⁵

Two scripts on one slab

The 713 slab gives the same text twice.³ One version is in early Telugu-Kannada letters, and the other is in Siddhamatrika, an early northern script.³ Gai wrote that this carried back the use of the northern script in South India by at least forty years.⁵ The summary of the 1959–60 epigraphy report suggests that Isanacharya was probably a northerner, and that the second version was written for him.¹⁰

Another pillar inscription of Vijayaditya’s time stands in the Bala Brahmesvara temple.¹⁰ It praises his father Vinayaditya’s victory over the lord of northern India.¹⁰ See the temples of Alampur.

Where the sources disagree

• The date of the enclosure slab. Gai read Saka 636, the eighteenth year, as 713.⁵ The summary of the 1959–60 epigraphy report gives the same two versions as Saka 635 and 636, which it equates with 714–715.¹⁰
• The record of 704. The 1961 list reads its date as Saka 626 and gives the regnal year with a query, as “[18?]”.⁴ Gai counted Saka 619 as the king’s first year, so the eighteenth year fell in 713.⁵

Footnotes

1. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts” (1896), p. 370 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Sewell, Historical Inscriptions (1932), p. 28 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

3. Epigraphia Telanganica I (2023), p. 47, reprinting G. S. Gai, “Alampur Inscription of Chalukya Vijayaditya, Saka 635 and 636”, Epigraphia Indica XXXV, pp. 121–124. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series 3, 1961), p. 38, No. 107 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Epigraphia Telanganica I (2023), p. 48, reprinting Gai, Epigraphia Indica XXXV. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts” (1896), p. 371 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), pp. 26–27 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

8. J. F. Fleet, “Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts”, Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency I, pt. II (1896), p. 369 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Gajjala Vasanta Lakshmi (ed.), Epigraphia Telanganica I: Pre-Kakatiya Telangana (2023), p. 45, summarising the Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telangana Districts VI (1973), pp. 3–4. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

10. Epigraphia Telanganica I (2023), p. 49, summarising the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy for 1959-60, pp. 21 and 58, and Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh, Mahabubnagar District I (2003), pp. 15–16. Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴