The Goa kingdom
Claiming descent from the older Banavāsi Kadambas, this house rose as Western Chalukya feudatories and ruled Goa and the adjacent Konkan for nearly four centuries, first from Chandor and then from Govapuri near the mouth of the Zuari. Their prosperity came from the sea: Goan ports handled the horse trade from Arabia and Persia into the Deccan, which every peninsular power depended on for cavalry.
Their charters are in Sanskrit and Kannada, and include grants to Arab merchants — one records the endowment of a mosque — which fits a state whose revenue depended on that traffic.
Tambdi Surla
The Mahādeva temple at Tambdi Surla, built of basalt in the twelfth or thirteenth century in the Western Chalukya manner, survives because it stands deep in the forest of the Ghats, far from the coast where the Portuguese demolished temples systematically after 1510. It is the single substantial piece of medieval architecture left in Goa.
The dynasty was destroyed by Delhi Sultanate and then Bahmani campaigns in the fourteenth century, and Goa passed to Vijayanagara, then the Bahmanis, then Bijapur, and in 1510 to Portugal.
Further reading
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Kramrisch, Stella. The Hindu Temple. Motilal Banarsidass, 1976
- Michell, George. The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Forms. University of Chicago Press, 1988
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. University of Hawaii Press, 2003
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.