The Origin of the Rashtrakuta dynasty has been a controversial topic and has been debated over the past decades by historians. The differing opinions mostly revolve around issues such as the home of the earliest ancestors of the medieval Rashtrakutas, a possible southern migration during the early part of the first millennium and the relationship between the several Rashtrakuta dynasties that ruled small kingdoms in northern and central India and the Deccan in the 6th century - 7th century. Further, the relationship of these medieval Rashtrakutas to the most important and famous dynasty, the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta of the 8th century - 10th century time period has also been debated. Also contested is whether the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta were related by ancestry to the early Kannada, Maratha, Reddi communities of the Deccan or other ethnic groups of northern India.
While the history of the early Rashtrakutas has caused much debate, the history of the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta (in present-day Gulbarga) of the 8th–10th centuries can be accurately constructed because numerous contemporaneous inscriptions and texts refer to them. The crux of the Manyakheta empire extended from the Kaveri river in the south to the Narmada in the north. At their peak they were the only south Indian empire that conquered regions in far northern India (Kannauj) as well as the extreme south (Tamilakam). The Lata branch of the empire (in present-day Gujarat) was an important dynasty belonging to the Manyakheta family line which later merged with the Manyakheta kingdom during the 9th century.
Research
Sources
The study of the history of the early Rashtrakutas and the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta has been made possible by the availability of numerous inscriptions spread all over the Deccan, ancient literature in Pali, contemporaneous Kannada literature such as Kavirajamarga (850) and Vikramarjuna Vijaya (941), Sanskrit writings by Somadeva, Rajashekara, Gunabhadra, Jinasena and others and the notes of Arab travellers of those times such as Suleiman, Ibn Haukal, Al Masudi, Al Istakhri and others. Scholars have left no topic unstudied in an effort to accurately propose the history of the Rashtrakutas. Theories about their lineage (Surya Vamsa or Chandra Vamsa), native region and ancestral home have been proposed using clues from inscriptions, royal emblems, ancient clan names such as "Rashtrika", epithets such as Ratta, Rashtrakuta, Lattalura Puravaradhiswara, names of royalty, coins and contemporaneous literature. These theories from noted scholars have resulted in claims that the Rashtrakutas were from either Kannadiga (possibly the tiller Vokkaliga), Reddi, Maratha, Punjabi, or other north western ethnic groups of India.
Epithets
The appearance of the terms Rathika, Ristika (Rashtrika) or Lathika in conjunction with the terms Kambhoja and Gandhara in some Ashokan inscriptions of the 2nd century BCE from Mansera and Shahbazgarhi in North Western Frontier Province (present day Pakistan), Girnar (Saurashtra) and Dhavali (Kalinga) and the use of the epithet "Ratta" in many later inscriptions had prompted a claim by Reu that the earliest Rashtrakutas were descendants of the Arattas, natives of the Punjab region mentioned in the text of Mahabharata who later migrated south and set up kingdoms there, while another theory of J.H. Fleet points more generally to north western regions of India. Based on this theory, the Arattas may have become natives of the Deccan having arrived there during the early centuries of the first millennium.
This is counter to the argument by other scholars that the term Rishtika used together with Petenika in the Ashokan inscriptions implied they were hereditary ruling clans from modern Maharashtra region and the term "Ratta" implied Maharatta ruling families from modern Maharashtra region. But this has been rejected on the basis that from ancient books such as Dipavamsha and Mahavamsha in Pali language it is known the term Maharatta and not Rashtrika has been used to signify inhabitants from modern Maharashtra region and the terms Rashtrika and Petenika appear to be two different displaced ruling tribes. Fleet believed the Rashtrakutas were Rathore Rajputs but the Rathores were of later origin and did not regard themselves as being related to the Rashtrakutas. Some scholars argue that the attempt to link the Rashtakutas to Marathas, Marathis or Rajputs was driven by a need to project modern political identities onto a much more complex past as these groups wouldn't exist till many centuries later.