Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 32

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ FEBRUARY, 1924
that the Pallavas were Parthian Pahlavas, who entered India froin Persia by way of Balûchistân, and that by the time they reached the Tamil country they had become Hinduised. This view, of course, always had difficulties, and we may now safely say that it must be given up. But who were they?
The Vrofossor tolls us that the Tamils always looked on Pulicat, as their Northern boundary beyond which dwelt the Vadukars, meaning thereby the Telugus and the Kannadas. It is in the region on the Eastern side of this portion of the Peninsula occupied by this poople" that " we find the earliest memorials of Pallava rule.” When tho Pallavas appear in general history they are in possession of Kanchi (Conjoeveram), and "whether they wore Tamils or Tolugus, they are the people wo find along the region between the lower courses of the Krishna and the Pålår," i.e., Tondamandalam (Tondanádu), including both Kanchi and Tirupati, inhabited by the Tond-ziyars', avhich name was considorod synonymous with that of tho Pallavas.' Kanchi" figures in the body of early literature as a viceroyalty of tho Cholas, and the only Toncaman that figures in the whole body of this literature as tho rulor of this part of the country is the Tondamån Ilam-Tirâyan of Kanchi, who ruled not so much in his own right, as by the right of his Chola ancestry."
As regards equating tho Pallavas with the Tondaiyars, the Professor goes into the question at some length. Thoy first appear as tribal rulers along the course of tho Krishna, "alinost to the Palâr, along the old Vaduka frontier of the Tamils", and his conclusion is that "they wore natives of South India and were not a dynasty of foreigners:" By origin they were in all probability a family of Nâga feudatories of the Satavahanas of the Dakhan."
Though their long rule greatly affected South Indian culture, the Pallavas were patrons of Northorn ideas and votaries of Vishnu and Siva. They carried their cult into the Tamil country, and for nearly 700 years there was hostility betwoen them and tho Tamils, so that they were nover in any special sense patrons of Tamil literature, as their predecessors had been."
I may say hero that in a paper recently published in Vol. LII of this Journal (pp. 77-80), Mudaliyar C. Rasanayagam would give a Sinhaleso-Tamil origin for the name Pallava, a Sprout, and a Sinhaleso-Naga origin for the Dynasty. The general facts appear to be that there were Någas in influential positions throughout the territory extending from Mathura in the North, through the whole length of the middle of the Peninsular region, to the distant South. One of the centres was in Mathurà itself, and another was Padmavati not far from Jhansi; a third is traceable in Bastar, and a fourth in the Southern Maratha country. The question, ir this view therefore, to settle is : which is the likeliest locality for the kind of marriage alliance stated to be the immediate cause of the Pallava riso to great power in their records ? Consequently if the Professor's conclusions are to be accepted, Mr. Rasanayagam's argument is ruled out. However, in its favour it may be said that tho acceptance of purely Indian soil as the original home of the Palla vas does not account for their name, the Sprout, which is what Mr. Rasanayagam aims at explaining. The question then is not even yet finally settled, though the foreign Pahlava origin of the Pallavas may now be definitely regarded as inadmissible.
As already noted there were many powerful Naga families in tho Dakhan from coast to coast, some of which made themselves independent, and by the time the Pallavas came into power at Kanchi, the Satavahanas had already ousted the Cholas from that region. The early Pallavas were "divided into four separate families or dynastics." So far opigraphy teaches us, and the Professor goes cleverly into the inscriptions to show that the promulgators of the Prakrit charters, beginning with Bappa-deva, were the historical founders of the Pallava dominion in South India, setting up a rule of a " distinct Asokan character,"