The Hoysalas of Mysore occupy an
important place in the annals of South India for nearly two and a half
centuries. South India was divided between the two great empires of the Western
Chalukyas of Kalyani and the Cholas at the rise of the Hoysala power in Southern
Mysore and the Hoysalas in the south and the Chalukyas, the Yadavas of
Devagiri, the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Kalachuryas and minor dynasties, before
the Muslim invasions. The Hoysalas themselves were destined to be eclipsed by
the Vijayanagara Empire, which for the first time brought the country south of
the Krishna under a single rule.
The long reign of Vikramaditya VI
saw the rise of powerful subordinate dynasties like the Yadavas of Devagiri in
the northern part of Karnataka, the Kalachuryas in the centre, the Hoysalas in
the south and the Kakatiyas in the east. To reconstruct the history of the
Hoysalas the whole context should be kept in view and the sources, literary and
archaeological, should be critically evaluated. Since Fleet and Lewis Rice
collected the Karnataka inscriptions, numerous epigraphs and literary works in
Samskrit, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, as well as Persian and Arabic, have come
to light. Dr. Derrett acknowledges that the vast material should be carefully
sifted before a full-scale work on the dynasties of Karnataka will be possible.
Further he has not utilised important Kannada works and the articles published
in Kannada. Even the Persian and Arabic sources like the writings of Amir
Khusru and Ibn Battuta have not been critically studied in the light of Kannada
sources and inscriptions. Chronology is very important because the
reconstruction of the history of the contemporary dynasties depends upon it. To
take one instance, the battle of Soratur is an important landmark in the
history of the Hoysalas. Ballala II defeated Yadava Bhillama in that battle and
assumed imperial titles for the first time in Hoysala history. There is absolutely
no warrant for the assumption that the Yadavas of Devagiri were Mahrattas making
war on Kannadigas. The Yadavas down to Yadava Kannara use Kannada in their inscriptions
and only from the time Kannara and Mahadeva we have short Marathi inscriptions.
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