Indian Antiquary Vol 53

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

Page 33

FEBRUARY, 1924)
A SKETCH OF SOUTH INDIAN CULTURE
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introducing a Northern organisation of government distinct from that of the Tamils, and olearing the great forest of the Dandakâranya (Dandaranyam). Their early inscriptions are in a Pråkpit, followed by a Sanskrit, series, which the Professor carefully considers.
This makes him go into two statements of the historians: (1) that Vishnugopa Pallava of Kanchi was a contemporary of the Gupta Emperor Samudragupta, and (2) that there was a Pallava interregnum in Kanchi, and that this can be referred to the time of the ancient Cholas, Karikåla and others.” As to the former statement the Professor is sceptical and as to the latter he regards it as an idea without foundation and altogether baseless. He here comes into conflict with the late Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya in some very valuable pages of controversy, in the course of which he adheres to his already expressed opinion that "the terms Pallava and Tondaiyar were synonymous, in the estimation of the early Tamils. If, therefore, we have to look for the origin of the Pallavas here are the people from among whom they must have sprung."
Going into the history of the inscriptions and other searchable sources, the Professor points out that Virakuroha Pallava is the first historical character of the race. He "married & Någa princess and thereby acquired his title to sovereignty of the region over which he ruled," which is to say, the territory that came to be associated with the Pallavas about Kafichi. This is the marriage above referred to. The secret, of the rise of the Pallavas to royal position is thus solved by a marriage at a time when the Satavahanas were passing away as a ruling dynasty, and the Någas, and with them the Pallaves, were ready to throw off Satavahana yoke. Having become thus free, Virakuroha's son, Skandaśishya, seems to have co-operated with that Dynasty in & war in the Dakhan with the Kshatrapas of Malvå at the end of the fourth century A.D.
At this time, the Andhras, as the great rulers of the Dakhan, wero declining, and their power had passed largely into the hands of the feudatory family of the Satus of Banavåse (Vaijayanti), known also as Satakarnis and Nagas. The Professor suggests that it was this Någa family that contracted a family alliance with Virakûrcha Pallava, who was thus "able to make good his position as ruler of the South-Eastern Viceroyalty of the Andhras."
Some light on the extension of Pallava power comes from the Kadamba inscriptions. When Mayura-Sarman, the redoubtable Bråhman founder of the Kadambas, made himself a considerable obstacle to the Pallava pretensions, the latter monarch recognised him "as a military officer of his own, with the government of a considerable province extending from the sea in the West to the Eastern limit of Prehâra (? Perûr)." The capital of this province was Banavåse. The Pallavas then must have got possession of it, and the marriage of the SQțu princess to the Pallava King must have been nothing more than an alliance between the two families, the Kadambas evontually obtaining power in the satu part of the whole territory. The Professor then throws out an important hint: "it was perhaps a subsidiary branch of the family of the Satus that ultimately overthrew the Kadambas in this region and founded the Dynasty of the Chalukyas."
Just as the Palla vas succeeded to the whole Southern portion of the Andhra Territory by marriage with a Naga (Satakarni) princess, so did they gain an overlordship over the territory of the Gangas of Kolar about 475 A.D.
After an examination of a Digambara Jaina work, the Lokavabhaga, the Professor winds up his general survey of the early Pallava history by an enquiry into its chronology, and finds that Simhavarman II must have begun to rule in A.D. 436, and that the date of Mahendravarman, when the story is more firmly historical, is somewhere near A.D. 600.
During the whole history of the Pa Havas from about A.D., 200 to nearly A.D. 900, their power contred round Kanchi (Conjeeveram). The culture they introduced, as already said, way Northern, and Sanskrit literature was encouraged. They were also great patrons of