CHALUKYA, also called Salunki, a race known as one of the four tribes of Agnicula Rajputs, the other three being the Chauhan, the Pramara, and the Purihara. The Chalukya claim to have been princes of Sooru on the Ganges. They are divided into sixteen branches, viz.: Bhagela.—Rnja of Baghelcund (capital Bandugurh), linos of l'itapur, Theraud, and Adaluj, etc. Birpura.—Rao of Lunawara.
Behila.—Kulianpur in Mewar, styled Rao, but serving the chief of Solumbra.
Bhurta and the Kalacha. —In Baru, Tekra, and (ihahir, in Jeysulmir.
Langaha.—Mahomedans about Multan. Togru.—Mahomedans on the Punjmni. Briku.—Mahomedans on tbo Puninud.
Surki.—In Dekhan.
Sirwureah.—Cirnar in Saurashtra.
Raoka.—Thoda in Jeypore.
Ranikia. —Daisoori in Mewar.
Kharura.—Allote and Jawura in Malwa.
Tantia.— Chandbhur ; Sakunbari.
Almetcha.—No land.
Kulamor.—Gujerat.
The Chalukya once held sway in Gujerat, Kandesh, Kaliani, and Warangal.
This is the oldest ruling race of which we find satisfactory mention made in the records of the Dekhan. The inscriptions collected by Sir 1Y. Elliot relate to four dynasties of princes, reigning over the greater portion of that part of India now denominated the Dakshina or Dekhan, but at that time Kuntala-desa.
The Pallava were the dominant race in the Dekhan previous to the arrival of the Chalukya. In the reign of Trilochana Pallava, an invading army, headed by Jaya Sinha, surnamed Vijaya ditya, of the Chalukya Kula, crossed the Nerbadda, but failed to secure a permanent footing, and he seems to have been killed. His queen gave birth to a posthumous son, in the house of a Brahman named Vishnu Sornayaji. The son was called Raja Sinha, but afterwards assumed the royal titles of Rana Raga and Vishnu Vard'hana. lie successfully renewed the contest with the Pallava, and married a princess of that race. A copper sasanam of his son and successor Pulakesi bearing date s.s. 411 or .a.D.489, is in the British Museum. From Raja Sinha's first conquest, the whole period of their rule would be about seven centuries.
Raja Sinha's great-grandson, Kirtti Varma, had two sons. one of whom ruled in Kalyan, the other in Telingana, after conquering Vengipuram, I the capital of Vengidesam.
The Kalyan branch was subverted for a time in the end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century, and the emigrant prince or his son succeeded by marriage, in A.D. 931, to the throne of Anhalwara Pattan in Gujerat, which his descendants occupied with great glory until A.D. 1145. But in A.n. 973 the dynasty of Kalyan was restored in the person of Tailapa Deva, and ruled with greater splendour than before, till its extinction in A.D. 1189 by Bijjala Deva, the founder of the Kalab'huria dynasty.
The branch in Telingana fixed their capital at Rajamahendri, the, modern Rajamundry. They appear to have effected their entrance into Telingana Balagbat by the conquest of Vengi in the 6th century, and, after several changes, the dominion passed by marriage to Rajendra Chola, then the dominant sovereign of Southern India, in whose person the power of the Chola dynasty reached its height. The following were the rulers of the Chalukya dynasty of Kalyan:— The country fell under the sway of Warangal. The family spread southwards into what is now known as Mysore, where they were afterwards the parent stem of the Hoisala Bellala dynasty of Dwara-samudra. They seem to have been of the Jaina faith, but to have subsequently adopted the Vaishnava and Saiva forms of Hinduism. A ruined temple at Buchropully, near Hyderabad, and temples at Hammoncondah, near Warangal, are in a style of architecture followed during Chalukya supremacy. At Warangal also are four pillars, Kirti-Stambha, which were set up by Pratupa Rudra, who had also erected the great temple at Hammoncondah.—Thomas' Prinsep's Antiquities; Sir TV. Elliot, 11f. L. S. .T., 1858 ; Elphinstone; Fergusson, Architecture, pp. 389, 731 ; Tod's Rajasthan, pp. 80-97. See Hoisala Bellala.