Basavakalyan (Kalyani)

01Capital of the Chalukyas

Someshvara I Ahavamalla, who fought the Cholas for most of his reign, moved the Chalukya capital to Kalyana around the 1050s. Under his son Vikramaditya VI, who ruled for half a century from 1076 and began his own era, the city was the seat of one of the great courts of the Deccan. Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita here in praise of his patron, and Vijnaneshvara wrote the Mitakshara, the commentary on the Yajnavalkya Smriti that became the law of inheritance across most of India. About 1162 the Kalachuri Bijjala, a Chalukya feudatory, took the throne at Kalyana.

02Basava’s Kalyana

Bijjala’s minister Basava made his house the Anubhava Mantapa, where Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi, Channabasava and hundreds of sharanas from every calling spoke their vachanas in plain Kannada. The upheaval that followed a marriage across birth lines drove the sharanas out of the city about 1167, and Basava went back to Kudalasangama. The Chalukyas briefly recovered Kalyana, then lost it for good to the Seunas and Hoysalas. The city later passed to the Bahmanis and Bidar. Its old fort still stands, and the town is full of sites linked to the sharanas: Basaveshwara’s temple, the cave of Akka Nagamma, and the place of Madivala Machideva.

The life of this place