Someshvara III

Someshvara III (IAST: Someśvara; r. 1126–1138) was a Western Chalukya king (also known as the Kalyani Chalukyas), the son and successor of Vikramaditya VI. He ascended the throne of the Western Chalukya Kingdom in 1126, or 1127.

Someshvara III, the third king in this dynasty named after the Hindu god Shiva made numerous land grants to cause of Shaivism and its monastic scholarship. These monasteries in the Indian peninsula became centers of the study of the Vedas and Hindu philosophies such as the Nyaya school. Someshvara III died in 1138, and succeeded by his son Jagadekamalla.

Someshvara was a noted historian, scholar, and poet. He authored the Sanskrit encyclopedic text Manasollasa touching upon such topics as polity, governance, astronomy, astrology, rhetoric, medicine, food, architecture, painting, poetry, dance and music – making his work a valuable modern source of socio-cultural information of the 11th- and 12th-century India. He also authored, in Sanskrit, an incomplete biography of his father Vikramaditya VI, called the Vikramankabhyudaya. His scholarly pursuits was the reason he held such titles as Sarvadnya-bhupa (lit, "the king who knows everything") and Bhulokamala ("the king who is lord of all living beings").