CHALUKYA, the name of an Indian dynasty which ruled in the Deccan from A.D. 550 to 75o, and again from 973 to 1190. The Chalukyas claimed to be Rajputs from the north. The dynasty was founded by a chief named Pulakesin I., who mastered the town of Vatapi (now Badami, in the Bijapur district) about 55o. His sons extended their principality east and west; but the founder of the Chalukya greatness was his grandson Pulakesin II., who succeeded in 6o8 and (609), established as his viceroy in Vengi his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana, who in 615 declared his independence and established the dynasty of Eastern Chaluk yas, which lasted till 1070. In 62o 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 63o was beyond dispute the most powerful sovereign in the Deccan. 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 75o Vikramaditya's son, Kirtivarman Chalukya, was over thrown 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. He was the founder of the dynasty known as the Chalukyas of Kalyani. About A.D. i 000 a formidable invasion by the Chola king Rajaraja the Great was defeated, and in 1052 Somesvara I., or Ahamavalla (d. 1o68), the founder of Kalyani, defeated and slew the Chola Rajadhiraja. The reign of Vikra maditya VI., or Vikramanka, which lasted from 2076 to 1126, formed another period of Chalukya greatness. In 1156 the com mander-in-chief Bijjala (or Vijjana) Kalachurya revolted, and he and his sons held the kingdom till 1183. In this year Somes vara IV. Chalukya recovered part of his patrimony, only to suc cumb, 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 Deccan," in the Bombay Gazetteer (1896), vol. i. part ii.; Vincent A. Smith, Early Hist. of India (revised J. M. Edwardes, 1924) .