Govinda III — Rashtrakuta Empire
Krishna III — Rashtrakuta Empire
Dhruva Dharavarsha — Rashtrakuta Empire
Amoghvarsha — Rashtrakuta Empire
Pulakeshi II — Chalukya Empire
Vikramaditya II — Chalukya Empire
Indra III — Rashtrakuta Empire
Deva Raya II — Karnataka Samrajya
Vikramaditya VI — Western Chalukya Empire
Krishna Deva Raya — Karnataka Samrajya
THE SACK OF MANYAKHETA AND THE BRUTAL END OF MUNJA
In 972 CE, the Paramara king Siyaka II of Malwa went to war against the Rashtrakuta emperor Khottiga. The Rashtrakuta forces were defeated and driven back south, with Siyaka pursuing them all the way toward Manyakheta, the great imperial capital of Karnataka.
Then came the blow.
Siyaka's army entered Manyakheta and plundered the city. The capital of the Rashtrakutas, which for generations had stood at the centre of one of India's greatest empires, was suddenly in the hands of an invading army from Malwa.
But Siyaka would not have Manyakheta uncontested.
As the fighting continued, the Western Ganga ruler Marasimha II came to the support of the Rashtrakuta forces. A fierce confrontation followed around the imperial encampment. The Paramara advance was checked, and Siyaka was eventually forced to withdraw and escape south Karnataka.
The sack of Manyakheta did not, by itself, destroy the Rashtrakuta Empire. But it exposed a serious weakness at the very heart of Rashtrakuta power. And someone was watching.
Tailapa II.
Tailapa was himself a powerful Rashtrakuta feudatory in Karnataka. He saw the weakening of the imperial throne as an opportunity and moved decisively. In 973 CE, he defeated the Rashtrakuta ruler Karka II, seized Manyakheta, and established the Western Chalukya Empire.
The Rashtrakutas had ruled Karnataka for centuries.
Now Tailapa had taken their capital and replaced them.
And the Paramaras were about to face the dynasty that had risen in their wake.
Siyaka's successor, Vakpati Munja, was no ordinary opponent. Munja was an ambitious and formidable ruler who eventually turned his armies south against Tailapa II. The struggle between the two kings became one of the great confrontations between Malwa and Karnataka.
But this time, the Paramara king walked into a trap.Munja was defeated and captured.The man whose predecessor had once marched into Karnataka and plundered Manyakheta was now a prisoner of the ruler who had seized the city from the collapsing Rashtrakuta order.
Munja was humiliated, forced to beg from door to door, and finally condemned to death.
Then came the final act.
Tailapa had Munja executed having him crushed beneath an elephant.
The Paramara king who had come south as a conqueror ended his life as a captive in the land his dynasty had once invaded.
Thus came a brutal end to what could have been a legendary rivalry.
But the rivalry did not die with Munja.
The Chalukyas of Karnataka would continue to carry the war into Paramara territory. Under Someshvara I, the father of the future Vikramaditya VI, Chalukya armies invaded Malwa and ravaged the Paramara heartland, striking at Dhara, Ujjayini and Mandapa. Dhara and Ujjayini were burned and plundered, while the Paramara king Bhoja was forced to flee before the Chalukya advance.
The wheel had turned completely.
The Paramaras had once stormed Manyakheta.
The Chalukyas would later storm Malwa.
And between those two moments stood the brutal death of Vakpati Munja . A king who came south to challenge Tailapa II, only to become one of the most famous victims of the struggle for supremacy between Karnataka and Malwa.
The legend of King Sala begins in the village of Sosevuru, where a young man named Sala was studying under a Jain guru named Sudatta. When a ferocious tiger suddenly emerged and threatened them near a temple, the guru handed Sala a weapon and shouted "Hoy, Sala", meaning "Strike, Sala" in Old Kannada. Sala instantly killed the beast, saving his teacher. This brave act and the victory cry gave birth to the Hoysala dynasty's name. The historic kings later adopted the event as their royal emblem, carving statues of the warrior stabbing the tiger at the entrances of their magnificent temples to symbolise their power.