Vakataka dynasty

The Vakatakas were a dynasty of the Deccan in central India that rose in the mid-third century CE and ruled until around the end of the fifth or early sixth century. They were the leading power in the region after the Satavahanas and contemporaries, allies and in-laws of the Gupta Empire to the north. At their height their influence is believed to have reached from the edges of Malwa and Gujarat to the Tungabhadra River. They are remembered above all as patrons of the Buddhist caves at Ajanta.

Where the family came from is disputed. V. V. Mirashi, building on an inscription from Amaravati that mentions a householder named Vakataka, argued for a Deccan origin. Ajay Mitra Shastri, drawing on Puranic tradition, placed the homeland further north in the Vindhya region. The epigraphist K. V. Ramesh has argued that the name derives from a local word for forest, and some scholars conclude that the Vakatakas were a local family that adopted Brahmanical rituals and Sanskrit titles to strengthen their claim to rule.

Almost nothing is known of the founder, Vindhyashakti, whose reign is usually placed around 250 to 270 or 275. A later inscription at Ajanta credits him with great battles and a large cavalry but gives him no royal title. His son Pravarasena I, who ruled for several decades from about 270 or 275, was the only Vakataka to call himself samrat, or universal ruler. He performed elaborate Vedic sacrifices, including four horse sacrifices, and extended Vakataka power, although how far north he reached is debated.

After Pravarasena I the family is generally thought to have split into four lines, of which two are known. The main branch ruled from Nandivardhana, near Nagpur, and later from Pravarapura. Its king Rudrasena II married Prabhavatigupta, daughter of the Gupta ruler Chandragupta II. When Rudrasena died after a short reign around 385, she governed for about twenty years as regent for her young sons. Historians have often called this a Vakataka-Gupta age in which the Deccan kingdom was nearly a Gupta dependency, though the evidence for this is debated. Her son Pravarasena II is credited with the Prakrit poem Setubandha, and more of his copper-plate land grants survive than of any other Vakataka king.

The second branch, founded by Pravarasena I's son Sarvasena, ruled from Vatsagulma, today's Washim in Maharashtra. Its land grants, written partly in Sanskrit and partly in Prakrit, are among the main sources for the dynasty.

The Vatsagulma king Harishena, who ruled in the late fifth century, appears to have united much of the Vakataka realm. An inscription in Ajanta Cave XVI claims victories over regions from Malwa and Gujarat in the west and north to Kalinga and Andhra in the east, and over Kuntala in the south. His minister Varahadeva had Cave XVI excavated, and caves XVI, XVII and XIX were carved and painted in his reign. The art historian Walter M. Spink argued that most of the Ajanta monuments date from Harishena's time.

How the dynasty ended is unclear. Harishena was followed by two kings whose names are lost. One view holds that they were defeated by the Kalachuris of Mahishmati. A story in Dandin's Dashakumaracharita, written perhaps a century and a quarter later, tells of a pleasure-loving son of Harishena betrayed by his own vassals during an invasion by the Kadambas, and a Kadamba record of 519 claiming lordship as far as the Narmada has been read as support for a Kadamba conquest. The Chalukyas of Badami later filled the gap left in the Deccan. No Vakataka coins have been identified.

Our 500 map labels this kingdom "Vakataka", across the northern Deccan in today's India, with the Gupta Empire to the north. On the 600 map the region belongs to the Chalukyas.