Regional kingdoms of the 11th and 12th centuries

The east: Senas and Eastern Gangas

While the north faced the Ghaznavid raids, eastern India saw a different scene. After the Palas declined, the Senas became the leading power in Bengal, ruling from Nadiya (today’s Nadia district). Their ties with neighbouring Kamarupa (Assam) and Kalinga swung between friendship and war. Unlike the Palas, who backed Buddhist monasteries, the Senas encouraged Hindu learning and literature and hosted poets such as Jayadeva, whose Gitagovindam tells the story of Krishna and Radha.

Down the coast in Kalinga, roughly present-day Odisha, ruled the Eastern Gangas. They married into the Chola family yet sometimes fought the Cholas. By the end of the 12th century they were among the steadiest powers of the east, with a kingdom stretching “from the Ganga to the Godavari”, as their inscriptions claim. They began the Jagannatha temple at Puri and later, in the mid-13th century, the great Sun temple at Konark.

The Deccan: Kakatiyas and Hoysalas

The Western Chalukyas of Kalyani fought the Cholas for years over Vengi, the fertile land of the Eastern Chalukyas. They faded, and two new powers grew in their place. In the 12th century the Kakatiyas took firm control of most of today’s Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Their capital, Orugallu (Warangal), had a fort with impressive stone gateways, or toranas, and they built the Thousand Pillar temple at Hanamkonda. They supported Telugu literature, strong village self-government, an efficient revenue system and irrigation.

The Hoysalas came from southern Karnataka. A legend, told in inscriptions and temple carvings, explains their name: when a tiger appeared at a Jain temple, the ascetic there cried “Poy, Sala!” (“strike, Sala!”), and their founder Sala obeyed and saved his life. From Velapura (Belur) and Dvarasamudra (Halebidu), King Vishnuvardhana broke away from the Chalukyas and took most of Karnataka. Their temples, with carved pillars, sculptures and panels, are famous; three are UNESCO World Heritage monuments.

Central India: Bhoja Paramara and the Chandellas

The Paramaras, once vassals of the Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas, ruled Malwa from Dhara (Dhar). Their greatest king, Bhoja, ruled from 1010 for almost fifty years, from the Konkan coast to parts of Rajasthan, and sent troops to help the Hindu Shahis against Mahmud. A scholar-king, he wrote Samarangana Sutradhara on architecture, town planning and machines, along with works on governance, poetry and medicine. He made a vast lake near Bhopal, a name said to come from ‘Bhojpal’, and began the never-finished Bhojeshwar temple. The Chandellas of central India resisted Mahmud and built dozens of temples at Khajuraho, such as the Kandariya Mahadeva temple.

The west: Chaulukyas and Chahamanas

The Chaulukyas, or Solankis, ruled Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan from Anahilavada (Patan). In 1178 their king Mularaja II, or by another account his mother, Queen Naikidevi, defeated Muhammad Ghuri near Mount Abu. The Chahamanas, or Chauhans, ruled most of Rajasthan from Ajayameru (Ajmer) and also held Delhi, then called Dhillika. Their king Prithviraja III defeated Ghuri at Tarain in 1191 but lost to him there in 1192.

Why it matters

These kingdoms show that, even in an age of invasions, much of India was ruled by its own dynasties, which built temples, lakes and forts and supported literature. Read about the Chola Empire and the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invasions. Answers to the textbook questions are in the NCERT solutions for Part 2 Chapter 4; see all of Part 2 Chapter 4 notes.