Vijaya-Bhattarika

Vijaya-Bhattarika (r. c. 650-655 CE) was a member of the Chalukya royal family of Deccan region in southern India. She is known from her Nerur and Kochre grant inscriptions, which call her Vijaya-Bhattarika respectively.

Inscriptions from the Deccan and South India mention Vijayābhaṭṭārikā in the context of Jain institutions, indicating her active involvement in the Jain religious community. She is recorded as having supervised religious establishments, contributed to the construction of basadis, and participated in ritual activities under the Digambara Jain tradition. and she is thus recorded as Pulakeśin II's sister-in-law and appears exclusively in royal and dynastic contexts.

Vijaya-Bhatarika was the wife of Chandraditya, who appears to have held the weakened Chalukya throne for a brief period, in the years following the Pallava invasion of the Chalukya capital Vatapi. After Chandraditya's death, Vijaya-Bhattarika seems to have acted as a regent for their minor son. Subsequently, the throne passed to her brother-in-law Vikramaditya I, who had probably become the de facto ruler during her regency, after having restored the dynasty's power as the supreme commander of the Chalukya army.

Recorded in temple and basadi endowment inscriptions where the title bhaṭṭārikā is used in a monastic sense, referring to Jain female religious leaders (āryikā/ bhaṭṭārikā).