med Pulakesin I., who
mastered the town of Vatapi (now Badami, in the Bijapur district) about
550. His sons extended their principality east and west; but the founder
of the Chalukya greatness was his grandson Pulakesin II., who succeeded
in 608 and proceeded to extend his rule at the expense of his
neighbours. In 609 he established as his viceroy in Vengi his brother
Kubja Vishnuvardhana, who in 615 declared his independence and
established the dynasty of Eastern Chalukyas, which lasted till 1070. In
620 Pulakesin defeated Harsha (q.v.), the powerful overlord of northern
India, and established the Nerbudda as the boundary between the South
and North. He also defeated in turn the Chola, Pandya and Kerala kings,
and by 630 was beyond dispute the most powerful sovereign in the Deccan.
In 642, however, his capital was taken and he himself killed by the
Pallava king Narasimhavarman. In 655 the Chalukya power was restored by
Pulakesin's son Vikramaditya I.; but the struggle with the Pallavas
continued until, in 740, Vikramaditya II. destroyed the Pallava capital.
In 750 Vikramaditya's son, Kirtivarman Chalukya, was overthrown by the
Rashtrakutas.

In 973, Taila or Tailapa II. (d. 995), a scion of the royal Chalukya
race, succeeded in overthrowing the Rashtrakuta king Kakka II., and in
recovering all the ancient territory of the Chalukyas with the exception
of Gujarat. He was the founder of the dynasty known as the Chalukyas of
Kalyani. About A.D. 1000 a formidable invasion by the Chola king
Rajaraja the Great was defeated, and in 1052 Somesvara I., or Ahamavalla
(d. 1068), the founder of Kalyani, defeated and slew the Chola
Rajadhiraja. The reign of Vikramaditya VI., or Vikramanka, which lasted
from 1076 to 1126, formed another period of Chalukya greatness.
Vikramanka's exploits against the Hoysala kings and others, celebrated
by the poet Bilhana, were held to justify him in establishing a new era
dating from his accession. With his death, however, the Chalukya power
began to decline. In 1156 the commander-in-chief Bijjala (or Vijjana)
Kalachurya revolted, and he and his sons held the kingdom till 1183. In
this year Somesvara IV. Chalukya recovered part of his patrimony, only
to succumb, about 1190, to the Yadavas of Devagiri and the Hoysalas of
Dorasamudra. Henceforth the Chalukya rajas ranked only as petty chiefs.

See J.F. Fleet, _Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts_; Prof. R.G.
Bhandarker, "Early History of the Decc