An eulogy dated 634–635 CE, it was composed by the Jain poet Ravikirti[1] in honor of his patron emperor Pulakeshin II Satyashraya of the Vatapi Chalukya dynasty.

[10] Further, in the Aihole inscription, Ravikirti borrows and builds upon several additional verses found in Raghuvaṃśa of Kalidasa and the Kirātārjunīya of Bharavi – famed works of Hindu Vishnu and Shiva traditions respectively.

[10][11] According to Kielhorn, this is exaggeration, but the purity of the Sanskrit and the poetic flourish of Ravikriti's composition per the alamkara-sastras does show that he was "in the very front rank of court-poets and writers of prashastis" of his times.

The translation published by Kielhorn is as follows:[18] Victorious is the holy Jinendra ─ he who is exempt from old age, death and birth ─ in the sea of whose knowledge the whole world is comprised like an island.

When many members of that race, bent on conquest, applied to whom the title of Favourite of the Earth had at last become appropriate, had passed away, There was, of the Chalukya lineage, the king named Jayasimha-vallabha, who in battle ─ where horses, foot soldiers and elephants, bewildered, fell down under the strokes of many hundreds of weapons, and where thousands of frightful headless trunks and of flashes of rays of swords were leaping to and fro─ by his bravery made Fortune his own, even though she is suspected of fickleness.

When his desire was bent on the dominion of the lord of the gods, his younger brother Maṅgalêśa became king, who by the sheets of dust of his army of horse, encamped on the shores of the eastern and western seas, stretched an awning over the quarters.

And again, when he was desirous of taking the island of Rêvatî, his great army with many bright banners, which had ascended the ramparts, as it was reflected in the water of the sea appeared like Varuṇa’s forces, quickly come there at once at his word (of command).

Or when was it that the sky ceased to be black like a swarm of bees with thundering clouds, in which flashes of lightning were dancing like banners, and the edges of which were crushed in the rushing wind?

When, having found the opportunity, he who was named Âppâyika, and Gôvinda approached with their troops of elephants to conquer the country north of the Bhaimarathî, the one in battle through His armies came to know the taste of fear, while the other at once received the reward of the services rendered by him.

Although in former days they had acquired happiness by renouncing the seven sins, the Gaṅga and Âḷupa lords, being subdued by his dignity, were always intoxicated by drinking the nectar of close attendance upon him.

While He was ruling the earth with his broad armies, the neighbourhood of the Vindhya, by no means destitute of the lustre of the many sandbanks of the Rêvâ, shone even more brightly by his great personal splendor, having to be avoided by his elephants because, as it seemed, they by their bulk rivaled the mountains.

Almost equal to Indra, He by means of all the three powers, gathered by him according to rule, and by his noble birth and other excellent qualities, acquired the sovereignty over the three Mahârâshṭrakas with their nine and ninety thousand villages.

Through the excellencies of their householders prominent in the pursuit of the three objects of life, and having broken the pride of other rulers of the earth, the Kaliṅgas with the Kôsalas by His army were made to evince signs of fear.

Ravaged by him, the water of Kunâḷa ─ coloured with the blood of men killed with many weapons, and the land within it overspread with arrays of accoutered elephants ─ was like the cloud-covered sky in which the red evening-twilight has risen.

With his sixfold forces, the hereditary troops and the rest, who raised spotless chowries, hundreds of flags, umbrellas, and darkness, and who churned the enemy elated with the sentiments of heroism and energy, He caused the splendour of the lord of the Pallavas, who had opposed the rise of his power, to be obscured by the dust of his army, and to vanish behind the walls of Kâñchîpura.

When straightway he strove to conquer the Chôḷas, the Kâvêrî, who has the darting carps for her tremulous eyes, had her current obstructed by the causeway formed by his elephants whose rutting-juice was dripping down, and avoided the contact with the ocean.

May that Ravikîrti be victorious, who full of discernment has used the abode of the Jina, firmly built of stone, for a new treatment of his theme, and who thus by his poetic skill has attained to the fame of Kâḷidâsa and of Bhâravi!

According to Richard Solomon – an Indologist specializing in epigraphical records, the Aihole inscription is a useful source of simple facts such as the date of Meguti Jain temple, Ravikirti's role in building it, the fame of Kalidasa, the state of language and literature in early 7th-century.

If inscriptions found in central India and the Chinese record are to be trusted, then there was a truce after both sides having won a war, Harsha ruled peacefully for next 30 years to the north of the Narmada river, while Pulakeshin II stayed in the Deccan region.

Similarly, Chalukyan copper plates state that Mangalesha handed over the kingdom to Pulakesin II when he came of age, with the added flourish that "can a scion of the Chalukya family ever swerve from the path of duty?".