Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.16

c2.16

The Pallavas now engage in a deadly struggle against the Chālukyas of Bādāmi in the Bombay Presidency. The causes which brought about this long war are not stated, but the hostility between the two tribes became so intense, that each looked upon the other as its natural enemy. The history of this period consists mainly of the events of this war with the Chālukyas, which lasted for nearly a century and was the ultimate cause of the decline and fall of both the Pallavas and Western Chālukyas about the middle of the eighth century. The Chālukyan king Pulikēsin II of Bādāmi, who was Mahēndra’s contemporary, ascended the throne in 609 A. D. and soon overcame the great Harsavardhana of Kanauj. He then turned his arms against the south. Pishtapura, the modern Pithāpuram in the Gōdāvari district, was the first to fall. Then Pulikēsin drove the Pallavas out of their northern province, advanced far into the Pallava country and even threatened their capital. It is stated, with regard to this event, that “ Pulikēsin subsequently caused the splendour of the lord of the Pallavas, who had opposed the rise of his power, to be obscured by the dust of his army and to vanish behind the walls of Kānchipuram.”