Person · Rashtrakuta emperor
Amoghavarsha I
Also known as Amoghavarṣa, Amoghavarsha Nrupatunga, Nṛpatuṅga, Nripatunga, Sharva, Atishayadhavala, Vira Narayana
Amoghavarsha I ruled the Rashtrakuta empire for sixty-four years, from 814 to 878, and moved its capital to Manyakheta, modern Malkheda in Kalaburagi district. A Jain disciple of Jinasena, he kept a court where Mahaviracharya wrote the Ganitasarasangraha and where the Kavirajamarga, the earliest surviving work on Kannada poetics, was written by him or with his poet Srivijaya. Its definition of Kannada country, from the Godavari to the Kaveri, is the language's first map of itself.
- Date
- 814–878
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Rashtrakuta
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
The Arab merchant Sulaiman al-Tajir, writing around 850, is cited for counting his empire among the four great kingdoms of the world, and Mahaviracharya's arithmetic opens with verses in praise of King Nripatunga.
The Kavirajamarga is credited to him, to his court poet Srivijaya, or to both. The Sanskrit Prashnottara Ratnamalika is attributed to him by some and to Vimalacharya by others. His reign is variously given as beginning in 814 or 815 and ending in 877 or 878.
Connections (3)
- Ruled fromManyakheta
Amoghavarsha moved the Rashtrakuta capital from Mayurkhandi in Bidar district to Manyakheta, modern Malkheda in Kalaburagi district, and is said to have built it to match the city of Indra. It remained the imperial capital until 968 and became a centre of Digambara learning: Jinasena and his pupil Gunabhadra composed the Mahapurana there, and Mahaviracharya the Ganitasarasangraha. The Neminatha basadi there dates from his reign; the Paramara king Siyaka sacked the city in 972–73.
- PatronageEllora
Ellora's five Digambara Jain caves, numbered 30 to 34, were cut in the 9th and early 10th centuries at the northern end of the cliff, alongside the later Rashtrakuta Hindu caves. The Wikipedia account of Ellora says that Amoghavarsha could have built the early Jain temples there, and the article on him says he built Jain temples within the caves. These caves hold some of the earliest Samavasarana images and pair Parshvanatha with Bahubali nineteen times.
- PatronageLakshmi, Kolhapur
Amoghavarsha, though a devout Jain, is recorded as making an offering to the Mahalakshmi temple of Kolhapur, and the historians Chopra, Ravindran and Subrahmanian say he also worshipped Hindu goddesses. Older readings took the inscription's word bali as a blood offering, saying he cut off a finger for the goddess; the Wikipedia article argues that bali here means a gift. It also reports a view that the shrine was once linked with Padmavati, the yakshi of Parshvanatha. Both readings are contested.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Amoghavarsha", "Kavirajamarga", "Malkheda" and "Rashtrakuta literature". A. S. Altekar, Rāshṭrakūṭas and Their Times (1967); Suryanath U. Kamath, A Concise History of Karnataka (2001); R. Narasimhacharya, History of Kannada Literature (1988).
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