Krishna I occupies Gangavadi

01The campaign

Shripurusha was one of the longest-reigning Ganga kings and had fought the Pallavas successfully. Rashtrakuta inscriptions say Krishna I defeated him, and a record of 768 shows a Rashtrakuta officer ruling at Manne, the Ganga royal centre near Bengaluru. The Gangas were not destroyed; Shripurusha kept his throne as a subordinate ally, and the family would rise and fall under Rashtrakuta pressure for another two generations.

02The builder of Kailasa

The wealth of these wars went into one of the wonders of the world. The Baroda plates of Karka, issued in 812, credit Krishna I with the temple at Elapura, which is the Kailasa temple at Ellora, cut downward from a single hill of basalt. The plates say that even the gods in their aerial cars, seeing it, wondered whether it had been made by human hands. Krishna I also completed the conquest of the Chalukya heartland begun by Dantidurga.

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 →