Indian Antiquary Vol 46

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 84

72
THE INDIAX ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1917
Poduka and Malanga." Without going into the details of this geography here we may take Malanga the port to be the Mahabalipuram that is at present. The description of Mâvilangai we find in the Siru pánaruppadai would answer to this very well, as well as in Hiuen Thsang's time, when it was the port of embarkation for Ceylon. The interior35 Malange was, according to Ptolemey, the capital of Bassarnagos, which, on the analogy of Sorenagos of the same writer, must be the capital of the land of a people Basser, which is a Greek modification of Vegar or Vêttu var, who constituted, if not the sole, at least an ntegral part of the population. This possibility requires to be worked up more fully.
It must be noted in this connection, however, that there is a place containing a Pallava care temple near Tindivanam called, even now, Kilmâvilangai (i. e., East or Lower Mávilangai). Another Malingi (Kan. for Mâvilangai) in Mysore is called in the 11th century A. D. IJainâţfu Mâvilangai.su These adjuncts to the two names imply the existence of other places of the name in the neighbourhood or about the same region. As far as I am able to make out at present there is no authority for taking Mâvilangai to mean a country as Mr. Kanakasabhai has taken it 37:--the passage of the Sirupânâruppadai not lending itself to that interpretation. If then the capital and the port bore the same name, there is some reason for the careful Chinese traveller calling the two places by the same name, though different from this one, but well-known in his days. In fact, it is stated that to Oymana tu Nalliyakkôdan, the hero of the Sirupanárruppažai, belonged the region comprising the cities and fortresses of Amur, Vêlûr, Eyilpa tinam, Mâvilangai, Kidangil, &c., but Kânchi in the same region does not find mention as such. His time, I take it, is intermecliate to those of Tondamán Iļandirayan of Kanchi, and the Vishnugopa of Kanchi defeated by the famous Samudragupta.
This would take us to the vexed question of the origin of the Pallayas, and whether they were an indigenous dynasty or a dynasty of foreigners. The study of their monuments at Mahâbalipuram inakes it quite clear that their civilization at any rate, must have been Brahmanic ; their architecture shews clear traces of its indigenous origin. These would support the contention of the Vishnu Purana, 38 that the Pallavas were a race of Kshattriyas, who fell from their high estate by giving up the Vaidic duties enjoined upon them, meaning perhaps that they had become Buddhists. When they come into view in South India, they seem bent upon making amends for their past remissness by an extraordinary amount of zeal for Hinduism. It would seem reasonable to infer that they had as little to do with the Pahlavas or Parthians, as their contemporaries the Chalukyas had to do with the Seleukians of Asia.
Having come so far, it would seem pertinent to ask the question whether these Pallaras, who present themselves to us through the antiquities of Mahabalipuram, are the same as those known in the locality from the earliest times, or whether these were new-comers That these powerful Pallavas of the dynasty of Narasimhavarman were Aryans in culture must now seem clear. There is one particular motive in the buildings of these that strike one as a remarkable feature, and that is the lion-base for the pillars. This, with the maned lion upon their coins, seems to indicate unmistakably that these were the feudatories of the Andhras, who advanced southwards from across the Krishna River, both in the lower and
34 W. Schoff's Periplus, p. 46, Section 60.
$Pattuppattu I S. yer's Edition. * Epig. Carnataca. Mysore Pt. I.T. X. 34 and 35. sf The Tamils 1800 Years Ago, » Bk, III. Ch. iii. Wilson's Translation. Original blokas (15-21).