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Culture.
EPIGRAPHIA JAINICA. 81 from the local dynasties which were powerful in the Deccan immediately before them. This point will become clear by 'a consideration of the family histories of, the Kalachuris, the Rāshtrakūtas and the Kadambas.
The Kalachuris belong to the Chēdi country Kalachuri in the Central Provinces. They are supposed to be a race of Abhiras. Cunningham gives A.D. 249 as the starting point of the Chēdi era in which the Kalachuris date their grants. They emerge into history about the time of Mangalēsa Chalukya, for, from his grants we learn that they must have been a powerful dynasty in his time. Some of their grants show that in early times they must have patronised Buddhism and Jainism. During times later than that of Mangalēsa, we find the same sovereign, now being described as Saiva and again as Vaishnava. That shows a catholicity of faith on their part, an attempt at cultural fusion as a bulwark of political power. Their grants in later times show a marked literary development in Sanskrit poetic style under the influence of South Indian culture. Very few references can be found in North Indian · Sanskrit Kavyas proper (either monumental or literary) to preliminary lists of “ishtadēvata stutis." This tradition the poetic bards of the Kalachuri courts must have developed as a sort of reflection of the religious catholicity and cultural fusion which the dynasty was trying to adopt. In South Indian Karnāta Literature this tendency becomes marked during
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