Patan
The Chāvḍās emerged in northern Gujarat in the eighth century, and Vanarāja is credited with founding Aṇahilapāṭaka in 746 CE. The city became and long remained the political centre of Gujarat, and the Chaulukyas and Vāghelas ruled from it after them.
The dynasty's own record is thin — most of what is said about it comes from Jain chronicles written centuries later, principally the Prabandhacintāmaṇi, which preserves a good deal of anecdote and an uncertain chronology.
Transition
The last Chāvḍā ruler was displaced around 942 CE by Mūlarāja, his sister's son, who founded the Chaulukya dynasty. Later Jain accounts make the succession a usurpation and dwell on it at length.
Patan's later fame rests on two things the Chāvḍās did not build: the Rāṇī kī Vāv, the eleventh-century Chaulukya stepwell whose walls carry hundreds of sculptures, and the Jain manuscript libraries that made the city a centre of Śvetāmbara learning.
Further reading
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. The Colas. University of Madras, 1955
- Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta. A History of South India. Oxford University Press, 1955
- Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.