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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA,
[VOL. XV.
No. 11.-TWO PALLAVA COPPER-PLATE GRANTS.
By H. KRISHNA SASTRI, MADRAS. The subjoined Pallava grants of Skandavarman II and Simbavarman II were discovered u. 1915 in the Narasaraopet taluku of the Guntar district. The owner of them, M. R. Ry. Jarabula Venkatesvarulu, the village Munsiff of Santarāvūru, in the Bapatla taluka of the sarae district, is stated to have been in possession of these grants from a very long time, so that the exact history of their discovery is shrouded in darkness. Both the plates have been kia.dly presented by the owner to the Madras Museum on the recommendation of the Collector of Guntur and will bo deposited in that institution as soon as the subjoined article is issued in the prigraphia Indica. The former of the plates, which belongs to the time of Skandavarman Il and is the carlior of the two, supplies a missing link in the study of Pallava history, of which two periods have been generally recognized, viz., an earlier and a later. Dr. Hultzsch and the lato Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya have done much for the elucidation of both these periods, and we have largely to rely upon their publications for the Pallava history known so far, though before them the Rev. Mr. Foulkes had edited some copper-plato records of the same dynasty, but only tentatively.
The origin of the Pallavas has been obscure. A enggestion has been thrown out by Mr. Venkayya that they may have to be connected with the Palhavas mentioned in the Malablarata and the Parānas and there classified as foreigners outside the pale of Aryan society. It is true that here the Pallavas are so classed with the Sakas, Yavanas and other foreign tribes; nevertheless the possibility of their being a class that originatod from an intermingling of the Brahmanas with the indigenous Dravidian tribes is not altogether precluded. This presumption is confirmed partly by a curious statement made in the Rayakota copper. plates that Aśvatthaman, the Brahman founder of the race, married a Näga woman and had by her a son called Skandasishya. Other copper-platos, which relate a similar story, mention in the place of Skandasishys the eponymous king Pallava, after whom the family came to be called Pallava. Hence it appears almost probable that the Pallavas, like the Kadambas of Banavüsi, the Nolambas of Mysore, the Matsyas of Odda vadit (Oddadi in the Vizagapatam district) and other similar dynasties, were the products of Brähmana inter-connections with the Dravidian racos, as the stories related of their origin indicate. The Pallavas are, however, referred to in an early Kadamba record of the 6th century A.D. as Kshatriyas, and their earliest sovereigns are stated to have performed Vedio sacrifices like the Aryan kings of old.
Three, and sometimes oven four, distinct periods of Pallava history are recognized, the earliest covering roughly two centuries, viz., the 3rd and the 4th, and the next roughly the 5th and part of the 6th century A.D. The third, or rather the third and the fourth periods together, extended from the latter part of the 6th down to almost the end of the 9th century A.D., when the kingdom proper of the Pallavas, viz., the Tonda-mandalam, was conquered by the Cholas of Tanjore. The continuity of the line during these several periods has not been clearly established. The rulers of the last dynasty of Pallavas down from the time of Simhavishnu were distinguished as the first builders of lithio monuments in Southern India, the bitter opponents of the progress of the Western Chalukyas of Bādāmi in the south, and the
Annual Report on Epigraphy for 1916, p. 113, paragraphs 3 and 4. . Arch. Suro. Rep. for 1906-7, pp. 217 f. Above, Vol. V, p. 52. • See e.g. S. I. ., p. 355, vv. 16 and 17. 5 Dr. Fleet's Dyn. Kan. Distrs., p. 286 and foot-noto 2. • Mr. Rice's Mysore and Coorg from Inscriptions, p. 55. Above, Vol. V, pp. 107 f.
* Sout)-Indias Images, ch. I, p. 2.
