 The origin of the Rashtrakuta dynasty has been a controversial topic of Indian history . These issues pertain to the origin of the earliest ancestors of the Rashtrakutas during the time of Emperor Ashoka in the 2nd century BCE , and the connection between the several Rashtrakuta dynasties that ruled small kingdoms in northern and central India and the Deccan between the 6th and 7th centuries . The relationship of these medieval Rashtrakutas to the most famous later dynasty , the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta ( present day Malkhed in the Gulbarga district , Karnataka state ) , who ruled between the 8th and 10th centuries has also been debated . 
