Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.12

c2.12

With the beginning of the seventh century we enter a period of Pallava history for which the records are more numerous and the chronology is not altogether a field of conjecture and doubt. The earliest stone monuments of Southern India belong to this period. In fact, the history of Hindu Architecture in Southern India may be said to begin with the reign of the Pallava king Mahēndravarman I (610 to 640 A. D.). Mahēndra was the son of a Pallava king named Simhavishnu who reigned in the latter part of the sixth century. We know very little about Simhavishnu and the relationship which the Pallava kings of this series bore to the earlier dynasty is nowhere explained, though four of the latter are mentioned among the ancestors of the former in a Pallava copper-plate charter of the eighth century. The following is the pedigree of this line of Pallava kings, as given by the late Mr. Venkayya :—