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Vemulavada

Temple town in the Karimnagar country of Telangana (Rajanna Sircilla district since 2016), called Lembulavataka in its 10th-century inscriptions. It was the capital of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada, feudatories of the Rashtrakutas, and the court of Arikesari II, patron of the Kannada poet Pampa. Later it was the seat of governors of the Chalukyas of Kalyani. In 1909 it was a jagir town of the Sirsilla taluk, with a temple beside a large tank. In the temple enclosure was the tomb of a Muslim saint honoured by Hindus and Muslims alike.

A temple with a stepped pyramidal tower, among trees.
A temple with a stepped pyramidal tower, among trees. · A. Claude Campbell (ed.) (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Vemulavada was the capital of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada in the 9th and 10th centuries. The pillar inscription of Arikesari II calls it his capital, Lembulavataka.12 The Parbhani plates of his grandson call it the royal city Lembulapataka.12

N. Venkataramanayya wrote the history of the family for the Hyderabad Archaeological Department in 1953.3 He took Lembulavataka to be a Sanskrit form of the Telugu name Lemulavada, and he named the family after it.3

The Chalukya capital

Arikesari II’s inscription stands on a pillar beside the sanctum of the Bhimesvara temple, once called Baddegesvara.4 It records a gift of land in the north-east of the capital, for a feeding house at a temple of the Sun.41 As witnesses it names nine merchants and the heads of the town’s four temples:41

  • Rajesvara
  • the Sun
  • Baddegesvara
  • Nagaresvara41

Venkataramanayya took the Nagaresvara to be the merchants’ temple.5 The Parbhani plates of 966 make their grant to the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a Jaina temple.6 The father of Arikesari III built it in the capital.6 See the temples of Vemulavada and the Vemulavada inscription.

Under the Chalukyas of Kalyani

Vemulavada remained a centre of government after the family’s fall.7 An inscription there is dated 25 December 1083.7 It records that the mahamandalesvara (great feudal lord) Rajaditya, a feudatory of Vikramaditya VI, governed his districts from his capital, Lembulavade.7 He built a temple of Rajadityesvara there.7

Other inscriptions record a flower garden given in 1106 by Prince Somesvara to the god Harikesvara.8 This record mentions the agrahara (village granted to Brahmins) of Lembavadi in the Venisale Seventy.8 Another records a gift of land in 1108 by Jagaddevarasa, a prince of the Paramara dynasty of Malava.8

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry called Vemulavada the most important town of the Sabbi-nadu.9 He noted that no Kakatiya records had been found there.9

The town in 1909

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 counted Vemalwada among the chief towns of the Karimnagar district.10 It was a jagir (land-grant) town in the Sirsilla taluk, 8 miles north of Sirsilla, with 5,372 people in 1901.11 “It contains a temple on the south of a large tank, in the enclosure of which is the tomb of a Musalman saint regarded as sacred by Hindus and Musalmans alike.”1011

P. Sreenivasachar, Director of Archaeology, wrote in 1953 that the Rajeswaraswami temple and the tank still drew crowds of pilgrims.12 He wrote that local tradition linked the place with the Telugu poet Bhima Kavi.12

Footnotes

  1. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 84 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 97 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  3. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), author’s preface, p. vii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  4. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 82 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. N. Venkataramanayya, The Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 45 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  6. Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), p. 93 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  7. Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (1961), pp. 5–6, No. 12 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Kannada Inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series 3, 1961), p. 5, Nos. 10 and 11 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 48. ↩ ↩2

  10. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 175 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  11. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 184 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  12. P. Sreenivasachar, preface to Venkataramanayya, Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (1953), unnumbered page before the author’s preface (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

Photos

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Dynasties

Chalukyas of Vemulavada

c. 750–973 CE

A family of Chalukya chiefs who ruled the Sabbi country of northern Telangana, today's Karimnagar district, from their capital Vemulavada (Lembulavataka). They were feudatories of the Rashtrakutas from about 750 to about 970. Their records begin with Vinayaditya-Yuddhamalla, who is said to have bathed his elephants in oil at Podana (Bodhan). Arikesari II (about 930–955) was the patron of the Kannada poet Pampa, and Somadeva Suri wrote his Yasastilaka in 959 in the town of Arikesari's son. Their rule ended when the Chalukyas of Kalyani took Telangana before 973.

People

Baddega I Soladaganda (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 850–895 CE

Chalukya king of Vemulavada in the later 9th century, a feudatory of the Rashtrakutas. Pampa and the Parbhani plates praise him as the hero of forty-two battles, called Soladaganda ('the undefeated hero'), who seized a king named Bhima 'as if catching a crocodile' in water. Historians identify Bhima with the Eastern Chalukya king Chalukya-Bhima I. N. Venkataramanayya dated his reign to about 850–895.

Pampa (Adi Pampa)

902 CE

Kannada poet, born in 902 into a Brahmana family from the Vengi country that had become Jaina. At the court of the Chalukya king Arikesari II of Vemulavada he wrote the Adipurana and the Vikramarjunavijaya or 'Pampa Bharata' (941). In the second poem he made his patron the epic hero Arjuna. A rock inscription of his younger brother Jinavallabha on the Bommala Gutta at Kurikyal, near Karimnagar, gives his family and the village the king granted him.

Narasimha II (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 915–930 CE

Chalukya king of Vemulavada, a feudatory of the Rashtrakutas, who ruled from about 915 to 930. Pampa and the Vemulavada inscription of his son Arikesari II credit him with victories over the Latas, the 'Seven Malavas' and the Gurjara-Pratihara king Mahipala, and with a pillar of victory at Kalapriya. N. Venkataramanayya held that he won them as the commander of the Rashtrakuta Indra III's northern campaign of about 916.

Arikesari II (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 930–955 CE

Chalukya king of Vemulavada in today's Karimnagar district, a feudatory of the Rashtrakutas, who ruled from about 930 to about 955. He was the patron of the Kannada poet Pampa, who made him the hero of his Vikramarjunavijaya (941). His pillar inscription at Vemulavada gives the family line and records a gift to a Sun temple in his capital, Lembulavataka. He sheltered a Chalukya prince named Bijja from the Rashtrakuta king Govinda IV, and helped bring Govinda's uncle Baddega (Amoghavarsha III) to the throne.

Somadeva Suri

959–966 CE

Jaina scholar and Sanskrit author of the 10th century. He finished his prose-and-verse romance, the Yasastilaka, in 959 at Gangadhara, in the territory of Vagaraja, eldest son of the Chalukya king Arikesari II of Vemulavada. At that time the Rashtrakuta Krishna III was in camp at Melpati. In 966 Arikesari III gave him a village for the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a Jaina temple at Vemulavada.

Arikesari III (Chalukya of Vemulavada)

c. 966–973 CE

Last known Chalukya king of Vemulavada, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta Krishna III. His Parbhani copper plates of 7 April 966 give a village in the Sabbi Thousand to the Jaina scholar Somadeva Suri for the Subhadhama Jinalaya, a temple built by his father at the capital, Vemulavada. An inscription at Repaka of 968 names him as builder of a Jaina temple. The family's rule ended when the Chalukyas of Kalyani took Telangana in the years up to 973.

Vemulavada Bhimakavi

Telugu poet known mostly from legend, linked by tradition with Vemulavada in Karimnagar district and with Draksharama. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called him 'a poet of mystery': he has been placed in every century from the 12th to the 16th, and no work can be given to him with certainty. Later poets remembered him for 'words of power', and one tradition makes him the first to write verse with two meanings.

Monuments

Temples of Vemulavada

Group of temples at Vemulavada, the capital of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada, round the Rajarajesvara (Rajesvara) temple and its tank. The 10th-century inscription of Arikesari II names four temples there: of Rajesvara, the Sun, Baddegesvara and Nagaresvara. It stands in the Bhimesvara temple, formerly the Baddegesvara. N. Venkataramanayya thought the Rajesvara and Baddegesvara were named after, or built by, kings of the family. Later records of the Chalukyas of Kalyani add temples of Rajadityesvara and Harikesvara.

Inscriptions

Vemulavada inscription of Arikesari II

c. 930–955 CE

Long Sanskrit inscription, with Kannada titles, on the four faces of a stone pillar beside the sanctum of the Bhimesvara (old Baddegesvara) temple at Vemulavada. It sets out the family line of the Chalukyas of Vemulavada from Vinayaditya-Yuddhamalla to Arikesari II. It describes the northern victories of Narasimha II and Arikesari II's defeat of an army sent against him by Govindaraja. Its editor, N. Venkataramanayya, took Govindaraja to be the Rashtrakuta Govinda IV and thought that this defeat sealed his fate. It records Arikesari's gift of land for a feeding house at a Sun temple in his capital, Lembulavataka. It is undated, and Arikesari reigned about 930–955.

References

Sources (4)
  1. N. Venkataramanayya, The Chalukyas of L(V)emulavada (opens in a new tab), The Archaeological Department, Government of Hyderabad (printed at the G. S. Press, Madras), 1953, preface, vii, 43–45, 82–84, 93, 97, plate 6. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  2. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1909, pp. 175, 183–184. [Public domain]
  3. Dr. P. SREENIVASACHAR, M.A., Ph. D. (London) & Prof. P. B. DESAI, M.A., Andhra Pradesh Government Archaeological Series No. 3. KANNADA INSCRIPTIONS OF ANDHRA PRADESH (opens in a new tab), 1961, pp. 5–6. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  4. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1978, pp. 48. Paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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