[3] The kingdom they ruled was known as Alvakheda Arusasira and its territory spanned the coastal districts of the modern Indian state known as Karnataka.

A. Saletore, the name Alupa may be derived from its variant Aluka which is an epithet of the divine serpent Shesha of Hindu epics.

[5] Fleet has suggested that the name Aluka may possibly denote the Nāgas, who in early times were included in Chalukya dominions.

The figure of a hooded serpent which is found in an effaced Alupa stone inscription in the Gollara Ganapati temple in Mangalore and their ultra Saivite tendencies.

[5] Saletore dismisses the idea regarding the Dravidian origin of the name from the Tulu word Alunu meaning 'to rule' or 'govern'.

[5] The Alupas in their prime were an independent dynasty, centuries after reigning due to the dominance of Kadambas from Banavasi, they became feudatory to them.

[10] The Alupas as a feudatory of the Western Chalukyas in coastal Karnataka issued coins with Kannada and Nagari inscriptions on them.

The obverse of the coins carried the royal emblem "Two Fishes" and the reverse had the legend "Sri Pandya Dhanamjaya" either in Nagari or old (Hale) Kannada.

[10] Historian P. Gururaja Bhat states that the Alupa royal family were possibly of local origin who were followers of "Jainism" and later 10th century they accepted Shaivism, Bunt-Nadava caste.

[12] The rule over Uttara Kannada region, with Banavasi as its capital was by Chutu clan followed by the Shatavahana branch which governed for Siri, Siva, Pulumavi and Yajna Satakarnis, prior to the Kadambas.

Their royal emblem was the double fish and they claimed to belong to the Pandyavamsha and Soma Kula (lunar dynasty).

Also, the region of Humcha in the Shimoga district, and the land of Kasaragod in Kerala up to the Payasvini river was the boundary in the south.

The term Alvakheda is not seen in the inscriptions during the Vijayanagara period, when the region of Barakuru and Mangalore were two separate provinces under the administration of Governors who started controlling the territory without interfering in the autonomy of the Alupas.

On the west is the Arabian sea and on the east is the Western Ghats that fences the land like a fort that formed a heaven for the ruler.

[18] Te epigraph comes from Jambani of Sagar Taluk, discovered by Dr Gururaj Bhat, mentions about Chitravahana Alupendra in possession of Kadamba mandala.

This is, in fact, the first stone epigraph that points the ruler as a subordinate to Western Chalukya King (8th century CE).

The temple has several finest bronze statues installed by the King Kundavarma, which bears inscriptions of him dated 968 CE.

To be in centre to their ruling place, they even shifted their capital to Barakur from where they could look after the vast territory which spread up to Ankola in the North Kanara (Uttara Kannada District).

The Havyaka Brahmins of Uttara Kannada were attracted during 7th century CE by the Alupas and were given Agraharas for imparting Vedic knowledge to the people of Alvakheda.