The ancestors of Dantidurga could be traced back to one Dantivarman five generations earlier

The ancestors of Dantidurga could be traced back to one Dantivarman five generations earlier. This Dantivarman was a chief of little importance whose rule was located in a humble way in Ellichpur (Berar) to which place they must have migrated from Latur pehaps due to political pressure from the Chalukyas.

Dantivarman, Indra I, Govindaraja I, Karka I. Indra II-this was the line of succession from the earliest known ancestor to the father of Dantidurga.

There was a collateral line of rulers belonging to the Rashtrakuta family ruling from Manapura and another from Berar: the former was founded by a chiftain called Mananka belonging to the fifth century AD and was succeeded by his son Devaraja who in his turn was followed by his three sons successively.

They were but local chiefs. The Berar line gets mentioned in some copper plate grants and was historically as unimportant as that of Manapura. The history of the Deccan was influenced more by the seccessors of Dantivarman who were connected with the Rashtrakutas of Berar.

The rise of the Rashtrakutas was neither sudden nor unexpected, but was steady and sure for some time during Dantidurga’s chieftaincy. His mother was a Chalukyan prince from Gujarat a fact which strengthened his own position in Berar. He extended his sphere of influence by sedulously conquering some territories of the Gurjaras of Broach and of the Chalukyas of Gujarat.

What his political capital was, i.e., from where he operated, is not clearly known. The epigraphs like the Samangad plated of 754 record achievements of a routine type listing a number of places conquered by him, not excluding Kanchi, Kalinga, Kosala, Malava and so on.

This list is so familiar that the most distant territories were really not his conquest. It is, however, not unlikely that the Telugu Chodas of the Sri Sailam countries submitted to him and he went as far south as Kanchipuram where the reigning monarch Nandivarman Pallavamalla was sufficiently impressed with the Rashtrakuta’s prowess to be persuaded to recieve his daughter Reva in marriage.

Dantidurga in trying to ease the Badami Chalukya of his supremacy in the Deccan set about it carefully by relieving him first of the outlying territories and then delivering the final belw in c. 753. It was then that Kirtivarman II was defeated and driven out of Badami. He, however, continued in obscurity as a chieftain for a few years more. The Chalukyas were to remain in that condition till the Rashtrakutas could be overthrown in their turn by the descendants of the Chalukya.

Dantidurga emerges from what historical material we have on him as an energetic man capable of achieving his ends patiently and systematically. He added diplomacy to show of power so that when the time came for his assumption of sovereignty in the Deccan he could have friends from Gujarat to Kanchi. His inscriptions speak of him as a generous man making presents on holy days to holy men in holy places. He was about thirty years of age when he died. Perhaps he was ruling from Nasik or Ellichpur or even Ellora.