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THE DYNASTIES OF RAJASTHANA
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Certain scholars on the basis of analogy in the forms of the words 'Cālukya' and 'Caulukya', regard all the Cālukyas as belonging to one stock. According to them the early Cālukyas of Bādāmi, and the two later Cālukyas (the one from Kalyāņi known as the Western Cālukyas and the other from Vengi called the Eastern Cālukyas) as well as the Caulukyas of Gujarat must have had their common origin?
But the analogy of the form of names does not prove their assumptions fully correct for each of them traces their origin differently. The kings of the early Cālukya dynasty of Bādāmi do not record any supernatural origin of their family. They traced themselves up to their first ancestor in a quite human order. The Eastern Cālukyas of Vengi, on the other hand, traced their origin of the Lunar dynasty2 and the migration from the north. Regarding the origin of the Western Cālukyas the grants of Vikramāditya VI claim them as being of Lunar origin3 while the Jain poet Ranna, the court poet of Tailapa II, in the introduction to his poem, the Gada yuddha, mentions their origin from Ayodhyāpura, "the lord of Ayodhyāpura." 4 Bilhana, the court poet of Vikramāditya VI gives a similar story of supernatural origin of the Caulukyas as we have seen regarding the Caulukyas of Gujarāta, that is from the palm (Culuka) of Brahmā, and states that at first they ruled in Ayodhyā, but afterwards they came to Deccan. Regarding the Caulukyas of Gujarāta we have seen that Hemacandra also maintains the view of their Lunar origin.
All these beliefs about the origin of the Caulukyas lead us to draw certain important conclusions. We know from history that these later Calukya kingdoms including that of Gujarāta were founded in the later part of the tenth century after the disruption of the two great empires, the Răstrakūta in the Deccan and the Pratīhāra in the north. This also we know that the later Cālukyas of Deccan were the feudatories of the Räştrakūța emperors. In this connection we should also keep in mind the spirit of the age. During this age we find that all these usurpers of the previous kingdoms, in order to establish their supremacy over the mass whom they intended to rule, and over other contemporary ruling dynastiesthe Cahamānas and the Paramāras-invented their origins from supernatural or mythological personages and their court poets coloured the theory in their poetic fancies.
1 BG., I, Pt. I, p. 156. 2 El., VI, pp. 347-61. 3 TA., XXI, pp. 167-68. 4 IA., XI, pp. 43-45. • Vikramānkadeva-carita, Canto I, pp. 4-7.
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