Dhruva annexes Gangavadi

01The king in chains

Rashtrakuta grants say Dhruva defeated the Ganga, who had never been beaten before, and threw him into prison. Ganga inscriptions confirm that Shivamara II spent years in captivity. Dhruva then appointed his son Stambha, also called Kambharasa or Ranavaloka, as governor of Gangavadi; inscriptions in the Ganga country from these years are dated in Rashtrakuta reigns and name Kambha as ruler. The Gangas had held this land from Talakad for four centuries, and this was the first time it passed under a foreign prince.

02A scholar-king

Shivamara II is remembered among the Gangas as a learned man, credited with a work on elephants, the Gajashtaka, and as a patron of the Jain centre at Shravanabelagola, where an inscription names a basadi after him. His imprisonment did not end the story. When Dhruva died, the release of Shivamara and the ambitions of prince Stambha set off the next war, told in the following entry. Shivamara would spend most of his remaining life either in Rashtrakuta prisons or fighting to get out of them.

Dynasty · c. 350–1004 CEWestern Ganga dynasty of TalakadThe Western Gangas ruled Gangavadi in southern Karnataka for six and a half centuries, first on their own and then as the right hand of the Rashtrakutas. Their minister Chavundaraya raised the colossus of Gommateshwara at Shravanabelagola; the Cholas ended the kingdom by taking Talakad about 1004.Read →