Bijjala seizes Kalyani

01The usurpation

Bijjala belonged to a Kalachuri family that had served the Chalukyas as governors of Tardavadi. As Taila III’s authority collapsed after his defeat by the Kakatiyas, Bijjala took charge of Kalyani, at first keeping up the forms of loyalty; inscriptions show him as mahamandaleshvara and then, from about 1162, with full imperial titles. Taila III retreated to Annigeri and died in the south. The Chalukya line that had ruled since 973 was set aside for two decades.

02Basavanna at Kalyani

Bijjala’s minister was Basavanna, the Shaiva saint and poet whose vachanas in Kannada called for devotion to Shiva free of outward distinctions. Around him at Kalyani gathered the Sharanas, among them Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi, in the hall known as the Anubhava Mantapa. The meeting of the new court and the new movement ended in turmoil around 1167, and within twenty years the Kalachuri kingdom itself had fallen.

Person · 12th century CE (died c. 1167)BasavannaBasava served as minister of the treasury to the Kalachuri king Bijjala at Kalyana and gathered there the Shiva sharanas whose Kannada vachanas are among the great bhakti writing of Bharat. Each of his vachanas ends with the name he gave Shiva, Kudalasangamadeva, Lord of the Meeting Rivers.Read →