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No. 18.]
THE VAYALUR PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF RAJASIMAA II.
149
Uravapalli plates probably resumed possession of Kāñchi are not founded on any sure ground. We very well know that the early Pallava kings while ruling at their capital Kāñchi had their Viceroy at Dhaññakada (Dhānyakata) in the Telugu country. Why the later kings succeeding Skandavarman II should have chosen a different course of administration, dividing the kingdom between two ruling dynasties and why, even if this were so, the Vayalar inscription whose definite purpose is to describe the ancestry of king Rajasim ha-Narasimhavarman II of the Palakkada branch should go out of the way to include the names of the collateral Kanchi branch 43 to 46 (Nos. 25 to 28) which according to Professor Dubreuil was altogether unconnected with it, are questions that require to be explained satisfactorily before we could follow the theory of Professor Dubreuil postulating two separate dynasties simultaneously ruling in the Telugu country and in the Tonda-mandalam. Again, in the set of names enumerated one after the other from Nos. 43 to 50 (25 to 32), what authority does the Professor discover to presume that while the first four raled in a given order, the second five (omitting the first of them) ruled, not after them as should be expected, but simultaneously with them? Do not these kings possibly stand to each other in the relation of father and son as the first and the last sets of names in the list suggest or again, as the partial coincidence in the order Virakūrcha to Buddhavarman (Vélirpalaiyam plates) and full coincidence in Skandavarman to Nandivarman (Udayéndiram plates), indicate? In fact, therefore, the list of the names given by the Vayalür inscription remains to be as indefinite as those supplied by the Käsākudi, Udayēndiram and the Vèlārpālaiyam plates and there is not the least possibility of finding therein a succession list either whole or partial except after No. 49 (81) Simhavarman, the father of Simhavishņu. Professor Dubreuil's arguments are thas seen to be vitiated by wrong identifications and gratuitous assumptions and by his acceptance as genuine material of what still remains only tentative and requires further careful examination and scrutiny.
One positive and important result, however, derived from a study of the Vayalar list, is that certain conclusions arrived at in my contribution -on the Vēlārpālaiyam plates require correction. The identification of Kalabhartội with Kiņagopa on page 503 of the South Indian Inscriptions, Volume II, is now untenable since both these names occur in the Vayalar list as Nos. 21 and 28 (3 and 10); similarly, the identification of Chitapallava with Skandavarman and Virakārcha with Viravarman of the Pikira and the Māngadir grants cannot any more be upheld. The three kings Kalabharti, Chūtapallava and Virakorcha mentioned in the Vēlürpālaiyam plates must be some traditionally known very early kings of the Pallava family. Skandasishya (possibly same as Skandavarman), Kumaravishnu and Buddhavarman, who are mentioned in order of succession next in the Velärpaļaiyam plates, do not find the same place in the Vayalar Jist. There must evidently be a mistake due to the carelessness of the author of the Vēlārpālaiyam plates in describing the relationship of Skandasishya to VIrakttrcha. Perhaps these three kings also must have been some forgotten old kings with whom the later genealogy derived from the Sanskrit copper-plate grants cannot be connected. Consequenly, the probable period of about the middle of the 4th century or thereabouts for kings Simhavarman and his son Skandavarman, who, one after another, were crowned on their thrones by Aryavarman and Madhavavarman II of the Western Ganga dynasty and the beginning of the 7th century fixed for Mahēndravarman I, the author of the rock-cut shrines of South India, must remain still as the only two milestones in Pallava chronology.
The two verses recorded in lines 9 to 14 of the inscription are respectively in the Vasantatilakä and the Sragdhard metres and are rather corrupt. They give the king the already known titles Rājasimha, Kshatrasimha, Yuddhārjuna, Atyantakāma, Srimégha, Mahamalla, Ranajaya and Srinidhi. The adjunct #ifwatafuatilfe which occurs in these verses and which, literally rendered, means 'one whose diadem shines with the head-juwel, vis. Mahekvara (Siva),' is rather perplexing. Comparing this with titles like Sivachadamani ete.
