हिंदीOn this day

Chaulukyas (Solankis) of Gujarat

Mularaja founded the line at Anahilavada in about 941. His heirs rebuilt Somnath after Mahmud’s raid, built Modhera and the Rani ki Vav, and in 1178 defeated Muhammad of Ghor at Kasahrada.

  1. Mularaja Ic. 941–996
  2. Chamundarajac. 996–1008
  3. Durlabharajac. 1008–1022
  4. Bhima Ic. 1022–1064
  5. Karnac. 1064–1092
  6. Jayasimha Siddharajac. 1092–1142
  7. Kumarapalac. 1142–1171
  8. +4
Period: c. 941–1244 CERegion: Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra, at times Malwa and southern RajasthanCapitals: Anahilavada (Patan)
Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0

01Bhima I and the year 1026

Mahmud of Ghazni crossed the desert in the winter of 1025–26, took Anahilavada, and in January 1026 broke the temple of Somanatha at Prabhas Patan. Bhima I withdrew to Kanthkot in Kutch and returned when the raiders left. Somnath was rebuilt. In the same years his kingdom built the Sun temple at Modhera, whose inscription gives the year 1026–27, and his widow Udayamati built the Rani ki Vav at Patan, a stepwell seven storeys deep.

02Siddharaja and Kumarapala

Jayasimha Siddharaja conquered Malwa from the Paramaras, built the Sahasralinga lake at Patan, and gave the Jain acharya Hemachandra his place at court. Hemachandra’s grammar, Siddha-Hema, was named for the king. Kumarapala followed, close to Hemachandra and a patron of Jain shrines across Gujarat; the Bhava Brihaspati inscription of 1169 at Somnath records that he rebuilt the Shiva temple there in stone. The Jain temples of Taranga and Vimala Vasahi at Mount Abu, built by Bhima I’s minister Vimala in 1031, belong to this line’s reign.

Galteshwar Mahadev Temple, Sarnal
Place · 12th century, Chaulukya period, in the bhumija style of Malwa; shikhara restored by the ASI in 2021Galteshwar Mahadev Temple, SarnalA 12th-century Shiva temple at the meeting of the Galta and the Mahi, the rarest kind of temple in Gujarat: a bhumija temple of the Malwa style, built by Gujarati hands. Its fallen tower stood again in 2021.Read →

03Kasahrada, 1178

Muhammad of Ghor marched on Gujarat in 1178 through the desert route. The boy king Mularaja II was still a child, and his mother Naiki Devi led the army. At Kasahrada, at the foot of Mount Abu, the Chaulukya army broke the invaders; Muhammad escaped with difficulty and never tried the Gujarat road again, turning instead to Punjab. Bhima II then ruled for sixty years, though his ministers held much of the power. After 1244 the throne passed to the Vaghelas, a branch of the same family.

The rulers

  1. 1Mularaja IFounder at Anahilavadac. 941–996
  2. 2Chamundarajac. 996–1008
  3. 3Durlabharajac. 1008–1022
  4. 4Bhima IMahmud’s raid 1026; Modhera; Rani ki Vavc. 1022–1064
  5. 5KarnaFounded Karnavati, near Ahmedabadc. 1064–1092
  6. 6Jayasimha SiddharajaTook Malwa; patron of Hemachandrac. 1092–1142
  7. 7KumarapalaRebuilt Somnath in stone, 1169c. 1142–1171
  8. 8Ajayapalac. 1171–1175
  9. 9Mularaja IIVictory at Kasahrada under Naiki Devic. 1175–1178
  10. 10Bhima IIc. 1178–1240
  11. 11TribhuvanapalaLast of the main linec. 1240–1244

What they left

  • Rani ki Vav, Patan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
  • Modhera Sun temple (1026–27)
  • Kumarapala’s Somnath temple (1169), recorded in the Bhava Brihaspati inscription
  • Vimala Vasahi at Mount Abu (1031) and the Taranga temple
  • Hemachandra’s Siddha-Hema grammar and Dvyashraya Kavya

People

Mularaja IRuler
Reigned c. 941–996 CE

Mularaja I

Founder of the Chaulukya (Solanki) dynasty

Naiki DeviQueen
Regent of Gujarat, 1175–1178 CE

Naiki Devi

Chaulukya queen mother, victor of Kasahrada

Places

Galteshwar Mahadev Temple, SarnalRebuilt
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Galteshwar Mahadev Temple, Sarnal

A 12th-century Shiva temple at the meeting of the Galta and the Mahi, the rarest kind of temple in Gujarat: a bhumija temple of the Malwa style, built by Gujarati hands. Its fallen tower stood again in 2021.

Anahilwad PatanRuined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Anahilwad Patan

Capital of Gujarat for six centuries under the Chavdas, Chaulukyas and Vaghelas, the city of Siddharaja Jayasimha, Kumarapala and Hemachandra, whose queens built Rani ki Vav. It was sacked in 1197 and 1299, and in 1411 the capital moved to Ahmedabad.

Somnath JyotirlingaRebuilt
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Somnath Jyotirlinga

The first Jyotirlinga, on the shore at Prabhas where the Sarasvati meets the sea. Raided, razed and rebuilt again and again for nine hundred years, it was raised once more by free India in 1951.

Sun Temple, ModheraRuined
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Sun Temple, Modhera

A Surya temple of the Chaulukya kings, raised on the Pushpavati river the year after Mahmud of Ghazni’s army passed through Gujarat. Worship ended long ago, but the stepped Surya Kund and the carved halls still stand.

Dilwara Temples, Mount AbuRebuilt
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Dilwara Temples, Mount Abu

Five Jain temples on Mount Abu, plain outside and carved in white marble within so finely that the stone looks translucent. Damaged in the early 14th century, they were restored from 1321 by Jain families of Mandor.

Rani ki Vav, PatanExcavated
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Rani ki Vav, Patan

A seven-storeyed stepwell at the old Chaulukya capital Anahilapataka, built as an inverted temple to water. Flooded and filled with silt by the Sarasvati, it lay buried for centuries until the ASI dug it out; UNESCO listed it in 2014.

Kiradu TemplesRuined
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Kiradu Temples

The ruins of at least five temples in the Thar near Barmer, the Someshvara Shiva temple the best preserved. Their inscriptions record a Turushka attack and the restoration that followed.

Rudra Mahalaya, SiddhpurDestroyed
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Rudra Mahalaya, Siddhpur

The greatest Shiva temple of the Chaulukyas, on the Sarasvati at Siddhpur. Broken in Alauddin Khalji’s invasion of 1299 and partly turned into a mosque by Ahmad Shah I in 1414–15, it survives as a few towering pillars and a torana.

Battles

Battle of Kasahrada

Thirteen years before Tarain, Muhammad of Ghor tried the southern road into India through Gujarat. He was routed below Mount Abu by an army led in the name of a boy king by his mother, Naiki Devi.

1178 CE

Evidence

Prabhas Patan inscription of Bhava BrihaspatiInscription
1169 CE (Valabhi Samvat 850)

Prabhas Patan inscription of Bhava Brihaspati

A Sanskrit record of the Pashupata acharya Bhava Brihaspati, who persuaded the Chaulukya king Kumarapala to rebuild the Somnath temple.

On the timeline

  • 1094–1143 CE

    Siddharaja Jayasimha rules GujaratPolity

    The Chaulukya king took Malwa, built the Sahasralinga lake at Patan and the Rudra Mahalaya at Siddhpur, and kept Hemachandra at his court.

  • c. 1140 CE

    Hemachandra’s grammar paraded on an elephantCulture

    For Siddharaja the Jain scholar wrote the Siddha-Hema Shabdanushasana; the Prabandha texts say the king had it carried through Patan on an elephant.

  • 1143 CE

    Kumarapala takes the Gujarat thronePolity

    Guided by Hemachandra, the Chaulukya king forbade animal slaughter in his lands while still patronising Shiva’s temples.

  • 1197 CE

    Anahilapataka sackedWar

    Aibak avenged Kasahrada, beating the Chaulukya army near Mount Abu and sacking the Gujarat capital; the Chaulukyas recovered it within a few years.