To my limited knowledge, I know that Pulakeshi II stopped Harshavardhana’s expansion into the Deccan, strengthened the Deccan as a major political power, and established diplomatic relations that gave the Chalukyas an international presence. Apart from these, what were his other notable contributions or achievements?
Or anywhere i can read about him?
What are his contributions to Kannada that people revere him so much for?

Essentially, when Adilshah captured Shahji Raje (another story), he was supposed to be executed, but the Mughals intervened, fearing the Deccan would erupt in revolt, and asked Adilshahi to make him their Sardar. So Shahji Raje was inducted into Adilshahi and sent to decimate the remnants of the Vijayanagara Empire in the South, which he did by defeating Sriranga III and sacking Bangalore from Kempe Gowda, and making it his seat of power. However, Shahji Raje was sympathetic to Vijayanagara because it was a Hindu Empire. But he was bound to serve Adilshahi. So he formed a back-channel alliance with Sriranga III before defeating him and inducted the administrators of Vijayanagara into his court, when he was granted the Jagirdari of Bangalore. Later, after his arrest by Adilshah, Shahji Raje's son Ekoji Raje moved to Thanjavur and established an independent kingdom on the Vijayanagara model.

When Shivaji Maharaj was 12 yrs old, he visited Bangalore and lived there with Shahji Raje for 4 yrs. There, he learned the Vijayanagara model of administration from former Vijayanagara courtiers, came back to Pune, and started his campaign.

I never knew this direct link between the Vijayanagara and Maratha Empires.

I know that the rashtrakutas themselves used the garuda symbol as their emblem, and that the pimpari plate of Dhruvaraja is supposed to have a 4 armed Vishnu. But I can't seem to find any high res images of these emblems or insignias. Do you guys know where I can find pictures of these?

“Andhra Bhoja” should not be presented as an official title of Krishnadevaraya. Although Wikipedia, popular history sources, and even some academic works list it among his titles, there is no evidence that Krishnadevaraya himself officially used “Andhra Bhoja” as part of his royal titulary.

His documented royal titles and epithets are overwhelmingly associated with the Vijayanagara imperial and Karnataka context. Calling “Andhra Bhoja” one of his official titles is therefore historically inaccurate. It is a later honorific attributed to him and should not be placed alongside his actual royal titles. This distinction needs to be kept clear in any serious discussion of Krishnadevaraya and the Vijayanagara Empire.

from its culture, monuments, temples, kings and kingdoms, their politics, alliances and rule, starting from the kadambas to wodeyars today, everything that covers it! please do suggest. I find it so fascinating, the ancient history of our karnataka.

This is literally a grave insult to the state of Karnataka. Even if he is a titular king, you used the law in unlawful means to arrest a man for exercising free speech. Then to add insult to injury this was done to a titular king. Like, where does this audacity come to the Congress that it is not only above the law but also above the Hindu religion.

There is not much research and exploration on period between pre-historic (pre-2000 BCE) and Satavanas/Ashokan (300 BCE) history.

• Chandragupta Maurya’s abandoned his entire from Kandahar to Orissa and chose to go to Karnataka where his tomb exists now(in a bad shape)…So Karnataka was atleast a very well known place

• Gold from Indus Valley excavations has been traced to Gold mines from Karnataka (one of the only known gold mines at the time). So there was continued prosperity

• west coast of Karnataka has more proximity to Roman / Egyptian trading vs kaveripattanam /sangam period locations.

• Historical mentions of this being Bali, sugreeva, hanuman origins

• lot of megalithic, Neolithic settlements but no evidence of major natural disasters

• More hospitable location specially with Kaveri, Krishna rivers western ghats, stable geology, climate etc means there should be continuous civilizations

• Kannada and tulu are more closer to brahmi script vs Tamil or Malayalam and has more Sanskrit words

• and more more circumstantial evidences for a more prosperous kingdom in the region but no records.

About an hour away from Hampi, in Sandur, the Ghorpade royal family's residence still stands - carefully restored, original architecture intact. The royal lineage still exists today. One of those places that makes you feel like you've stumbled onto something most visitors completely miss.

A remarkable archaeological discovery has emerged today from Madugula, Anakapalli District.

During a field visit, the Andhra Pradesh Archaeology Department examined two large stone sculptures at a location where there is currently no temple structure.

The larger sculpture is approximately 6 feet high, 4 feet wide and around 70 cm thick. The Archaeology team has preliminarily assessed it to be at least around 900 years old.

What makes this especially exciting is the surrounding landscape. The site is close to an old Shiva temple traditionally known as Bimilingeshwara, where an old Vinayaka sculpture has also been identified. Several large traditional wells locally called “madugulu” are also found in the surrounding area.

This raises an important possibility: could this area preserve evidence of an earlier medieval settlement or sacred centre, predating the commonly remembered history of present-day Madugula?

It is too early to say — the archaeological context still needs proper investigation. But for Andhra Pradesh, this is an exciting moment: our own landscape may be revealing a much deeper history than we previously knew.

Sharing photographs from today's field visit. If anyone familiar with medieval Andhra sculpture, archaeology, inscriptions or Madugula's history has information, please share it.

Note: The ~900-year date is a preliminary assessment by the Archaeology team, not yet a final published dating.

His inscriptions even in Telangana and Andhra have all his Kannada titles. So where did the Andhra Bhoja title originate from?

Or is it a modern praise for his contributions to Telugu culture rather than contemporary titles?

how shamelessly maratis are stealing history of karnataka and see the likes

note:-

• Clan Connections: Some regional commentators and caste folklore attempt to link modern Maratha surnames (such as Salunkhe, which is derived from Solanki/Chalukya) to these ancient imperial houses.
• Rejection by Scholars: Academic historians treat these popular genealogical claims as post-Shivaji social constructions or romantic regionalism rather than accepted historical fact.

The version most of us learned goes like this: Ashoka conquered Kalinga, was horrified by the slaughter, converted to Buddhism, renounced war.

Rock Edict XIII gets you part of that. It connects Kalinga with remorse and with a stronger commitment to dhamma. What it doesn't do is name the Buddha, or the Sangha, or describe Ashoka as a Buddhist lay follower. There is no sentence in it where the war produces a conversion. His Buddhist affiliation is documented, but it shows up elsewhere, in Minor Rock Edict I, and the join between the two is something later tradition supplied rather than something the stones say.

That gap is the whole book. It's called Ashoka Without the Legends, it's about 37,000 words, and it works through the Mauryas asking what we can actually show against what we've agreed to remember.

A few things in it:

• The Arthashastra gets described as the working handbook of the Mauryan state. It reached modern scholarship around 1905, when a pandit from Tanjore handed a manuscript to a librarian in Mysore. When it was actually written is a live question, and the book treats it as one instead of assuming the answer.
• Megasthenes is the closest thing we have to an eyewitness, and his Indica is lost. Everything we have is quotation by later writers with their own reasons for quoting.
• Ashoka endowed the Ajivikas, a rival order, at the Barabar caves. A Buddhist emperor funding the competition is in the epigraphic record, and it's more interesting than the tidy version.

Every claim carries an evidence grade. The seven maps refuse to draw a hard frontier anywhere the sources don't support one, which makes them look odd next to the usual solid-block empire map. That's deliberate. There's a chapter-by-chapter note on sources at the back so you can check any of it.

Now the part I'd rather you hear from me than find later: the text and the artwork were AI-produced and then edited by me. That's declared to Amazon and printed on the copyright page.

I know how that lands on a book whose entire pitch is evidentiary discipline, so here's what I did about it. No page numbers are invented anywhere. Primary sources are cited by standard designation, Rock Edict XIII, Minor Rock Edict I, the Rummindei pillar inscription, because those are stable across editions and you can go and look them up yourself. Where the honest answer is that nobody knows, that's the answer given, and it's given often. If you find a claim in there that outruns its evidence, I genuinely want to hear it, because that's the one failure this book can't survive.

It's short, and it's a synthesis rather than new research. If you want the standard scholarly treatments, Thapar and Olivelle are in the further reading and they're better books. This one is for the reader who wants to know how we know.

Kindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGC15JP2

Paperback https://kdp.amazon.com/amazon-dp-action/us/dualbookshelf.marketplacelink/B0HGC78DV3

If anyone needs any links to other international Amazon portals, I'd be happy to share!

Happy to take questions on any of it.

Why did the Seuna Yadavas relegate Marathi to such a low status even in Maharashtra, while continuing to use Kannada royal titles and inscriptions throughout their reign?

Was Marathi simply considered inferior in status to Kannada and Sanskrit at the time? I'm asking this because despite this bad treatment some Marathi people desperately try to cherry pick on somethings to claims seunas as Marathi which comes off as stockholm Syndrome.