Pulakeshi II (610-42) is not the most glamorous of Kannada heroes. In comparison to other Kannada emperors such as Krishnadevaraya and Amoghavarsha or even Hoysala Vishnuvardhana and Ranadhira Kanthirava of Mysore, Pulakeshi hasn’t captured the attention of Kannadigas to the same extent. If Mayura (see this, this and this) was the founder of the first Kannada dynasty (Kadambas), then in the 7th century, Pulakeshi established the first pan-Indian Kannada kingdom; Pulakeshi II and Chalukyas were the first Kannada family to establish their control beyond their core area of northern Kannada speaking regions, effectively into all the south Indian regions, south of the Vindhyas. His success in stopping Harsha, the celebrated emperor of north India, on the banks of Narmada adds to his legend as a great Kannada hero. Yet, possibly because of the absence of popular legends and folk narratives, Pulakeshi doesn’t hold the same romantic appeal, as is the case with Mayura. His association with Kannada nationalism too seems to be contrived and forced.
Still, Pulakeshi is a Kannada hero and the subject of a Rajkumar film. His father, Kirtivarma I (566-596 AD) passed away when Pulakeshi and his brother Vishnuvardhana were young. Their ambitious and capable uncle, Mangalesha (596-610 AD), ruled the Chalukya kingdom efficiently until the young prince Pulakeshi rebelled against his uncle and snatched the Chalukya throne in 610 AD. Immediately, he had to subjugate rebellious feudatories who had been emboldened by the internal power struggle among Chalukyas. The Aihole inscription written by Ravikirti, Pulakeshi’s court poet, provides details of Pulakeshi’s conquests, including the context of each campaign. Among his campaigns, a major dimension of his life long struggle against the Pallava king and well known author, Mahendravarma and his son, Narasimhavarma. He captured the Vengi region from the Pallavas, before sacking Kanchi, the Pallava capital. If this earned him the life long enmity of Narasimhavarma, the conquest of Vengi enabled him to establish Vishnuvardhana as a king in that region. However, towards the end of Pulakeshi’s reign, Narasimhavarma sacked and destroyed Badami, the Chalukya capital. Pulakeshi’s sons had to struggle for more than a decade to re-establish the Chalukya power and regain the lost glory.
Pulakeshi’s tragic end doesn’t take away the luster of his achievements yet surely it does seem to affect his legend and status as a Kannada hero. Still, descriptions of his kingdom, its people and the capital city of Badami in Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang are quite flattering. Pulakeshi also received a Persian ambassador from the court of Khusro, a scene depicted in the Ajanta caves. Ravikirti’s following concluding description attests to Pulakeshi’s qualities and achievements:
While He, Satyashraya, endowed with the powers of energy, mastery and good counsel,–having conquered all the quarters, having dismissed the kings full of honours, having done homage to gods and Brahmans, having entered the city of Vatapi–is ruling, like one city, this earth which has the dark-blue waters of the surging sea for its moat;
I hope this historical note would be of some help for the review of the film Pulakeshi II.
Other online sources:
Pulakesi wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulakeshi_II
5 Comments
Thanks for a very engaging account of this hero. I have always been fascinated by his triumph over Harsha; his end at the hands of the Chola is a sad piece of history for me.
nice write-up! But the image of maps are too small. Is there larger versions of those?
Yeah, I do have larger versions and i should post those.
Very nice piece, interesting enough.
Well, inspite of PDCS’ claim that he is more well read than I am (nah, it’s actually my claim
), I come back for more debates.
I assume the first paragraph is just your “opinion”, right ? My take - It is definitely not true that Pulakeshi II hasn’t captured the attention of Kannadigas as much as the other four. Krishnadevaraya, sure, but the other 3. Nope…..”maybe” Vishnuvardhana, courtesy Shantala. But, Amoghavarsh in that list….come oooooon ? By Kannadigas, I assume you are not talking about just the educated ones here (or, I should say literates).
Another point which I would like to argue is the your claim that Pulakeshi does not hold the same romantic appeal that Mayura Sharma (for reasons unknown to me, I prefer the Sharma to Verma….LOL) does. Why ? courtesy Rajkumar ??? Come on. I can bet more people know about Pulakeshi defeating Harshavardhana thna Mayura Sharma defeating the Pallavas.
I don’t want to discuss Kannada “nationalism”, but in genreal hats off to the Chalukyas for the development of local language. As for the growth of Kannada as a language, nobody should dispute the fact (wow, that’s a joke, we’ll never know the facts per se) that Chalukyas laid the foundation for the development of Kannada and Rashtrakutas improved upon it. Be it Ravikirthi or Mangalesha’s shAsana, they were in Kannada. Well, the language itself was Sanskrit, but the lipi was Kannada (haLe haLegannaDa).
You call Mangalesha as ambitious. I don’t know, wasn’t he the model brother to Kirtiverma ? Maybe the power just went to his head (literally). How can a brother who was so loyal suddenly become a bad uncle ? Nothing but power would do that. Well, maybe you are right….maybe Mangalesha was ambitious. I just don’t know if that is the right word though.
Very well written PDCS. It could have been a little longer with more info. I would have enjoyed it.
Thanks for provoking
Thanks. you have written my mind. pulakeshi must be very much admired by we kannadigas. but his death was painful. In kannada there is a proverb “oLLetanavannu saavinalli nODu”(ಒಳ್ಳೆತನವನ್ನು ಸಾವಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡು). since his death was painful people hesitate a bit to show prowdness about him, its my opinion. but parameshwara pulakeshi’s grandson vikramaditya defeated pallavas again but this time he didnt kill anybody but tried win people’s heart he got an inscription written in kannada on the walls of “someshwara” temple which now in tamilnadu. you could have written little more. and please write about vikramaaditya.
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