Person · Chaulukya king · India
Bhīma I of Gujarat
Also known as Bhima I, Bhimdev I, Bhima I of Anhilwad, Chaulukya Bhima I, Solanki Bhima I
Chaulukya king of Anahilavāda whose reign opened with Mahmūd of Ghazni's sack of Somnāth in 1026 and closed with Gujarat's greatest building century under way. The Modherā sun temple was raised in his reign; his queen Udayamatī built Rāni-kī-Vāv at Patan as his memorial after his death.
- Date
- r. 1022 – 1064
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Tradition
- Chaulukya inscriptions; Prabandha-Chintāmani
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
He is not the Eastern Chālukya Bhīma I of Vengi, who ruled a hundred and thirty years earlier and built Drākshārāmam. Two Chalukya houses, unrelated but for the dynastic name, each produced a Bhīma I who is remembered for temples.
Connections (3)
- PatronageModhera Sun Temple
The Modherā sun temple was built about 1026 under Bhīma I, in the years immediately after Mahmūd of Ghazni sacked Somnāth and Bhīma abandoned his capital for Kanthkot. A dynasty that had just been humiliated answered by building the most exactly aligned temple in Gujarat. The temple has no tower over its sanctum, and the kunda in front of it carries a hundred and eight small shrines on descending terraces of water.
- PatronageUdayamatī
Udayamatī was Bhīma I's queen and built Rāni-kī-Vāv at Patan as his memorial about 1063, after his death. The Prabandha-Chintāmani records the commission by name, which is why the stepwell is one of very few great Indian monuments whose woman patron is documented rather than inferred. He is not the Eastern Chālukya Bhīma I of Vengi, who ruled a hundred and thirty years earlier and built Drākshārāmam; two Chalukya houses each produced a Bhīma I remembered for temples.
- CampaignSomnāth / Prabhāsa
Mahmūd of Ghazni sacked Somnāth in 1026, in the fourth year of Bhīma I's reign; Bhīma left Anahilavāda and took shelter at Kanthkot in Kutch until the raiders withdrew. He rebuilt the temple in stone afterwards, and that rebuilding is the structure later Gujarat took as the original. Somnāth was sacked, rebuilt and sacked again at least six times over five centuries, and the present temple dates only from 1951, built after Sardar Patel ordered its reconstruction.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bhima I”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
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