Amoghavarsha

[6] Amoghavarsha seems to have entertained the highest admiration for the language, literature and culture of the Kannada people as testified to in the text Kavirajamarga.

[7] Amoghavarsha I (whose birth name was Sharva)[8][9] was born in 800 CE in Sribhavan on the banks of the river Narmada during the return journey of his father, Emperor Govinda III, from his successful campaigns in northern India.

[11] A revolt led by some of his relatives together with feudatories of the empire temporarily unseated Amoghavarsha I, who, with the help of his cousin (Karka) also called Patamalla, re-established himself as the emperor by 821.

From the Cambay and Sangli plates it is known that Amoghavarsha I overwhelmingly defeated the Vengi Chalukyas and drove them out of their strongholds in the battle of Vingavalli.

[14] Tranquility was restored temporarily by a marriage between Vijayaditya II's son, Vishnuvardhana V, and the Ratta princess Shilamahadevi, a sister of Karka of the Gujarat Rashtrakuta branch.

However, Vishnuvardhana V attacked the northern Kalachuri feudatory of the Rashtrakutas in Tripuri, central India, and captured Elichpur near Nasik.

Amoghavarsha I killed Vishnuvardhana V in 846 but continued a friendly relationship with the next Eastern Chalukya ruler Gunaga Vijayaditya III, and suppressed the recalcitrant Alupas of South Canara under prince Vimaladitya in 870.

[17] He deeply cared for his subjects and once when a calamity threatened to harm them (according to the Sanjan plates), he offered his finger as a sacrifice to the goddess Mahalakshmi at Kolhapur.

[20] Proof for this comes from the writing, Mahapurana (also known as Uttara Purana) by Gunabhadra in which the author states "blissful for the world is the existence of Jinasenacharya, by bowing to whom Amoghavarsha Nrupathunga considered himself to be purified".

However, according to the scholar Reu, writings such as Mahapurana by Gunabhadra, Prashnottara Ratnamalika and Mahaviracharya's Ganita-sara-sangraha are evidence that Amoghavarsha Nrupathunga I had taken to Jainism.

[10] His own writing Kavirajamarga is a landmark literary work in the Kannada language and became a guide book for future poets and scholars for centuries to come.

Bilingual old Kannada-Sanskrit inscription (866 CE) written in old Kannada script, from Nilgund of Rashtrakuta Emperor Amoghavarsha I
Jaina Narayana temple Pattadakal built by Rashtrakuta Amoghavarsha