Vishnuvardhana

Vishnuvardhana (r. 1108–1152 CE) was a king of the Hoysala Empire in what is today the modern state of Karnataka, India. He ascended the Hoysala throne after the death of his elder brother Veera Ballala I in c.1108. Originally a follower of Jainism and known as Bitti Deva, he came under the influence of the Hindu philosopher Ramanujacharya, converted to Hindu Vaishnavism and took the name "Vishnuvardhana". His queen Shanthala however remained a Jain. This was the transition period from Jainism to Hinduism Vishnuvardhana took the first steps in creating an independent Hoysala Empire in South India through a series of battles against his overlord, the Western Chalukya King Vikramaditya VI, and the Chola Empire to the south. He recovered parts of Gangavadi province (modern southern Karnataka) from the hegemony of the Cholas in the battle of Talakad, and parts of Nolambavdi. According to historian Coelho, the Hoysalas gained the dignity of a kingdom due to the efforts of Vishnuvardhana, whose rule was packed with "glorious" military campaigns. According to historians Sen, Chopra et al., and Sastri, Vishnuvardhana was a "great soldier" and an "ambitious monarch". Hoysala literature in the Kannada language began to proliferate under the patronage of Vishnuvardhana. The mathematician Rajaditya wrote Vyavaharaganita and Lilavati on mathematics. According to the historian E.P. Rice, the epic poet Nagachandra was under Vishnuvardhana's patronage when he wrote the earliest extant Ramayana (a Jain version) in the Kannada language called Ramachandra charita purana, and an epic on the nineteenth Jain Tirthankar titled Mallinathapurana. Vishnuvardhana was the governor over parts of Gangavadi during the rule of his elder brother Veera Ballala I. After ascending the Hoysala throne, his first major conquest was that of the occupied Chola territories of Gangavadi in c.1116. According to the historian Kamath, the disgruntled Chola governor Adigaiman may have helped Vishnuvardhana in his conquest.