What is attested
The Sendrakas are known from copper-plate charters in Karnataka and from a related line in southern Gujarat. They held districts under Kadamba and Chalukya overlordship, and their grants follow the standard form — a village given to brahmins, with the boundaries and exemptions specified.
Sendraka princesses married into the Chalukya house, which is the usual sign of a feudatory family of the first rank rather than a merely local one.
They disappear from the record with the Rāṣṭrakūṭa takeover of the Deccan in the mid-eighth century. Families of this kind — attested, respectable, and without a narrative history — constitute the great majority of the polities named in any complete census of Indian kingdoms, and it is worth being clear that this is what most of the record looks like.
Further reading
- Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954
- Singh, Upinder. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. Pearson, 2008
- Bakker, Hans T. The World of the Skandapurana. Brill, 2014
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Huntington, Susan L. The Art of Ancient India. Weatherhill, 1985
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.