Page:Gódávari.djvu/44

20 and remained throughout distinct from, and independent of, the Western Chálukyas. Hiuen Tsiang visited this kingdom also. He describes it as being nearly 1,000 miles in circuit and its capital as some seven miles round, but the country was thinly populated — possibly owing to its recent conquest. The once numerous Buddhist convents were in ruins and deserted, for, though the Andhras and Pallavas had been Buddhists or Jains, the Eastern Chálukyas were Vaishnavites by creed.

The genealogy and some of the acts of the Eastern Chálukya kings of Vengi are given with great chronological distinctness in the various grants of the dynasty that have come down to us.* In the early part of the eighth century Udayachandra, the general of the Pallava king Nandivarman, claims that he subdued the Eastern Chálukya king Vishnuvardhana III (709-46);† but this reconquest by the ancient owners of the country seems to have been short-lived. Vijayáditya II (799-843) had to defend himself against his neighbours on the west, the Ráshtrakútas of Málkhéd (90 miles west by south of Hyderabad), who had subdued and taken the place of the Western Chálukyas. What was the result of the fighting is not clear. Vijayáditya II relates how 'during twelve years by day and by night he fought a hundred and eight battles with the armies of the Gangas (probably the Mysore Gangas) and the Rattas ' (i.e., the Ráshtrakútas); but his Ráshtrakúta contemporary, Góvinda III, boasts that he ordered the king of Vengi into his presence and made him assist in building and fortifying a city. At the end of the tenth century, the mighty Rájarája I, who had laid the foundations of a great Chóla empire with its capital at Tanjore, conquered the Eastern Chálukya country. He seems to have appointed a prince of the fallen line (Saktivarman, 999-1011) as king (or perhaps feudatory) in Vengi.‡ This man's brother and successor, Vimaláditya (1011-22),§ though he had married a Chóla princess, apparently attempted to throw off his allegiance, for Rájarája's son Rájéndra Chóla (1011-14) again invaded the Vengi country and advanced as far as the hill called Mahéndragiri in Ganjám, where he planted a pillar of victory. Vimaláditya was not deposed, however, and was succeeded by his son