How Kanauj became north India's most contested throne, and how the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Yadavas shaped the Deccan between the Guptas and the Delhi Sultanate.
Harshavardhana (606–647 AD) of the Pushyabhuti dynasty unified much of north India from his capital at Kanauj after the Gupta decline. He was defeated by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II on the Narmada, which capped his southward expansion — a rare instance of a Deccan power halting a north Indian empire. After Harsha's death without an heir, Kanauj became the prize in a long Tripartite Struggle among the Gurjara-Pratiharas, Palas, and Rashtrakutas, each seeking to control this symbolically dominant seat of power.
The Badami (Western) Chalukyas, founded by Pulakeshin I, dominated the Deccan through the 6th–8th centuries; Pulakeshin II's victory over Harsha remains their best-known achievement. After a period of Rashtrakuta rule, the dynasty revived as the Kalyani (Later) Chalukyas from the 10th–12th centuries, ruling from Basavakalyan and locked in recurring conflict with the Cholas over the Vengi region — a rivalry Andhra's Eastern Chalukyas were directly caught in.
The Rashtrakutas, ruling from Manyakheta, overthrew the Badami Chalukyas in the 8th century and became one of the era's most powerful Deccan dynasties — Krishna I's reign produced the monolithic Kailasanatha temple at Ellora, carved from a single rock. Centuries later, the Yadavas of Devagiri rose from Kalyani Chalukya feudatories to rule much of Maharashtra and northern Karnataka until Devagiri fell to Alauddin Khalji's forces in 1296 — one of the Delhi Sultanate's first major footholds in the Deccan.
APPSC frequently asks about the Tripartite Struggle's three participants, Pulakeshin II's victory over Harsha, and the Kailasanatha temple's builder — useful cross-links to both north Indian and Deccan political history.
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