An Arab chronicle of 851 ranked India's Rashtrakutas among four great world empires
In 851 an Arabic text, the Silsilat al-Tawarikh, counted the Rashtrakutas as one of the world's four principal empires. At their height these Deccan rulers stretched from the Ganges to India's southern tip, carved the Kailasanatha Temple at Ellora, and produced a king so scholarly and peaceable he was called the 'Ashoka of the South'.
The imperial line began as a feudatory clan under the Badami Chalukyas. In 753 its ruler Dantidurga defeated the Chalukya king Kirtivarman II, a victory recorded on a copper plate grant, and took over the northern half of his realm, with a base in what is now Karnataka. Where the family came from is still argued over: proposals include Kannadiga, Reddi, Maratha and Punjabi origins. Scholars do agree the dynasty raised Kannada to equal footing with Sanskrit, and the earliest surviving Kannada literature comes from its court.
For two centuries the Rashtrakutas fought a three-way contest with the Palas of Bengal and the Pratiharas for the rich Gangetic plains, each seizing the northern power seat of Kannauj for a time. Dhruva Dharavarsha, who took control in 780, raided Kannauj and beat both rivals. His son Govinda III went further; one inscription boasts that his horses drank from Himalayan streams and his elephants from the Ganges, and the king of Ceylon sent statues as a token of submission.
Amoghavarsha I, who came to the throne in 814, made Manyakheta the permanent capital and preferred marriage alliances to war. He wrote Kavirajamarga, a landmark of Kannada poetics, and a Sanskrit work later translated into Tibetan. Historians disagree over whether Jain devotion was a late development or a family tradition, but Jain scholars and mathematicians flourished under the dynasty. Its architects brought the Dravidian style to a peak at Ellora, and two temples at Pattadakal are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The end came fast. In 972 the Malwa king Siyaka Harsha plundered Manyakheta, shattering the empire's prestige. A feudatory, Tailapa II, declared independence, and the last emperor, Indra IV, performed sallekhana, the Jain vow of fasting unto death, at Shravanabelagola. The Western Chalukyas took over Manyakheta as their own capital.
Source: Rashtrakuta Empire
