Mangalesha takes Revatidvipa

01The record

The Aihole inscription says that Mangalesha, wishing to conquer Revatidvipa, crossed over with an army so large it looked like the sea itself, its banners reflected in the waves. The island fell. A copper-plate grant of Satyashraya Dhruvaraja Indravarman, issued from Revatidvipa in 610, shows a Chalukya governor ruling there a few years later. Redi, south of Vengurla, still has the ruins of a later fort on its headland.

02Why the coast mattered

The Konkan ports traded across the Arabian Sea, and whoever held them commanded the outlets of the Deccan. Kirtivarman had already broken the Mauryas of Konkan; Revatidvipa completed the work. Within a few years Pulakeshin II would besiege Puri, the Konkan capital, with a fleet of a hundred ships, according to the same Aihole inscription. Chalukya governors on this coast issued grants for generations after, and the ports of the Konkan stayed in Deccan hands until the Rashtrakutas took over the whole kingdom in the 750s.

Dynasty · 543–753 CEChalukyas of BadamiFrom a fortified red-sandstone gorge at Vatapi, the Chalukyas ruled the Deccan for two centuries. Pulakeshin II turned back Harsha on the Narmada, and their masons at Aihole, Badami and Pattadakal set down the first great stone temples of the south.Read →