Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 265

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FAKUARY, 1929)
23
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NOTES ON THE SEVEN PAGODAS
Pallavamalla. How far back the name Mallai goes, we have not the means of dooi. ding, but a coin of Theodosius has been discovered of date A.D. 371-396, which would indicate, although the evidence must be regarded as but slender, that the place was a port of some importance commercially.46 The genealogy of the Pallavas of Kafichi goes back ten generations at least before Simhavishnu the father of Mahendra, the monarch who excavated most of the caves of Southern India. 47 If we can take the time occupied by these at about two centuries, this will take us to about A.D. 400 from the known dates of Narasimha I. There are three other names to be accommodated perhaps, before we come to Vishnugopa of Kanchi, who suffered defeat at the hands of the Samudragupta about A.D. 350. One of these very early Pallavas, Simhavarman, is said, in the Amaravati. Pillar Inscription now in the Madras Museum, to have gone up to the Himalaya to imprint his lanchana' on its face, as symbolical of his universal sovereignty.48 This is in obvious imitation of the crowned kings of the Tamil land, the Chera, the Chola and the Pandya. We have to look for the particular Pandya, Chola and Chera much anterior to his time-whatever that time be.
This would, under all legitimate canons of criticism, bring us to the earlier centuries of the Christian era, and the geographical data of the classical writers ought to give us the clue.
We have already noted that the Chinese traveller Hiuen Thsang refers both to the capital and the port, as if they both had either the same name, or 'as though they could be regarded as the capital and its port, so intimately connected with each other as to be confounded by even an eminently intelligent foreigner such as the enlightened
Master of the Law' was. Ptolemy, the geographer, writing in the middle of the 2nd century A.D. refers to a port, as well as an interior city, named Malange.49 The Periplus, written about 80 A.D., refers to three ports and marts north of the Kâveri; Camara, Poduka and Malanga, 60 Without going into the details of this geography here, we may take the port Malanga to be the Mahabalipuram that is at present. The description of MÁvilangai we find in the Sirupánárruppadai would answer to this very well, as well as in Hiuen Thsang's time, when it was the port of embarkation for Ceylon. The interior 51 Malange was, according to Ptolemy, 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 Vedar or Vêttuvar, who constituted, if not the sole, at least an integral 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 cave temple near Tindivanam called, even now, Kiļmåvilangai (i. e., East or Lower MAvilangai). Another Malingi (Kan. for M&vilangai) in Mysore is called in the 11th century A.D. Idainattu MAvilangai,63 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 Mavilangai to mean & country as Mr. Kanakasa bai has taken it 63—the passage of the Sirupandrrupadai not lending itself to that interpretation. If then the capital and the port bore the same name,
*6 JRAS., 1904, pp. 609 and 636. 47 Origin and Early History of the Pallavas-J.I.H. 48 8. Ind. Ins., vol. I., p. 27, 11. 33-34. 49 Ante, vol. XIII, pp. 333 and 368. 60 W. Schoff'. Periplus, p. 46, Section 60. 63 Epig. Kamdara, Mysore, Pt. 1, T. N. 34 and 35.
51 63
Pattuppdffu, S. Iyer's Edition The Tamils 1800 Years Ago.