Badami was the capital of early Chalukyas who ruled much of

Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh between 6th - 8th century A.D. and was founded by the Chalukyan king Pulikesi I ( 535 - 566 A.D. ) in the year 540 A.D.

Pulakesi I in 550 established the Chalukya dynasty. Pulakesi I

took Badami in Bagalkot district, Karnataka under his control and made it his capital. Pulakesi I and his descendants, are referred to as Chalukyas of Badami. among them was Pulikesi II ( 610 - 642 A.D. ) who defeated Pallava king Mahendra Verman I and extended the Chalukyan empire upto Kanchipuram in the south.

Badami was ruled by many Chalukyan kings and the greatest

The army comprised of infantry, cavalry, elephant unit and a dominant navy. The Chinese traveler Hiuen-Tsiang refers that the Chalukya army consisted of hundreds of elephants, which were inebriated with liquor prior to battle.

 The Badami Chalukyas imprinted

coins of an unusual standard, the coins comprised of Nagari and Kannada legends. They minted coins with cryptograms of temples, lion or boar facing right and the lotus. The coins weighed 4 grams and were called honnu in old Kannada. A gold coin called Gadyana is mentioned in some record in Pattadakal that later came to be known a varaha.

They followed Vedic Hinduism. The worship of Lajja Gauri, the fertility goddess was equally popular. Later from the era of Vikramaditya I an inclination towards Shaivism. However, they enthusiastically encouraged Jainism and confirmed to by one of the Badami cave temples

 The primarily long-term inheritance of the Chalukya dynasty is

the architecture and art they left behind. More than one hundred and fifty monuments attributed to the Badami Chalukya, and built between 450 and 700.

Their style includes two types of monuments. The rock cut halls (caves) Structural temples The rock-cut temples of Pattadakal, a UNESCO World Heritage

Site, Badami and Aihole are their most celebrated monuments. Two of the famous paintings at Ajanta cave no. 1, "The Temptation of the Buddha" and "The Persian Embassy" is attributed to them. This is the commencement of Chalukya style of architecture and a consolidation of South Indian style.

The Chalukyas of Kalyana covers two and a quarter centuries form 973 to 1198 A.D. The Western Chalukya Empire ( ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This dynasty is sometimes called the Kalyani Chalukya. To distinguish these Chalukyas from the earlier Chalukyas of Badami, they are associated with Kalyana or Kalyani in Bidar District which was their capital. After Tailapa declared himself the sovereign king, Eleven kings ruled after Tailapa. They were : Satyashraya Iriva Bedanga (997-1008 CE) Vikramaditya V (1008-1015 CE), Jayasimha II (1015-1044 CE), Someshwara I (1044-1068), Someshwara II(1068-1076 CE), Vikramaditya VI (1076-127 CE), Someshwara III (1127-1139 CE), Jagadekamalla (1139-49 CE), Tailapa III (1149-1162 CE) and finally Someshwara IV (1158-98 CE).

Coinage:

 The fall of the Rashtrakuta empire to the Western Chalukyas in the

tenth century, was a setback to Jainism. The growth of Virashaivism in the Chalukya territory and Vaishnava Hinduism in the Hoysala region paralleled a general decreased interest in Jainism. The decline of Buddhism in South India had begun in the 8th century with the spread of Adi Shankara's Advaita philosophy. in simple Kannada and wrote "work is worship" (Kayakave Kailasa). Also known as the Lingayats (worshipers of the Linga, the universal symbol of Shiva), these Virashaivas questioned many of the established norms of society such as the belief in rituals and the theory of rebirth and supported the remarriage of widows and the marriage of unwed older women. This gave more social freedom to women but they were not accepted into the priesthood. Ramanujacharya, the head of the Vaishnava monastery in Srirangam.

In his Vachanas (a form of poetry), Basavanna appealed to the masses

 A unique and native form of poetic literature in Kannada called

Vachanas developed during this time. They were written by mystics, who expressed their devotion to God in simple poems that could appeal to the masses. Basavanna, Akka Mahadevi and Allama Prabhu are the best known among them. Akka Mahadevi

 In the cultural history of India this period witnessed

unprecedented activity in temple building. The Chalukyas of Kalyana inherited great traditions and faced g The Kasivisvesvara Temple at Lakkundi (Gadag district) The Dodda Basappa Temple at Dambal (Gadag district), The Mallikarjuna Temple at Kuruvatti (Bellary district) The Kallesvara Temple at Bagali (Davangere district) The Siddhesvara Temple at Haveri (Haveri district), The Amrtesvara Temple at Annigeri (Dharwad district), The Mahadeva Temple at Itagi (Koppal district) The Kaitabheshvara Temple at Kubatur and the Kedareshvara Temple at Balligavi are the finest examples produced by the later Chalukya architects. reater challenges in the field of art.