History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s6.1

v1.c19.s6.1

Conjivaram, or Kânchîpuram, is a city where tradition would lead us to expect more of antiquity than in almost any other city of the south. About the middle of the 4th century, or soon after, Samudragupta claims to have overcome Vishnugopa, the Pallava king of Kânchî; and about A.D. 640 Hiuen Tsiang visited Kânchîpura, the capital of Dravida, which he describes as a large city with ruins near it ascribed to Asoka. In the kingdom he speaks of "some hundred sanghârâmas and 10,000 priests of the Sthavira school" of the Mahâyâna, and there were some eighty Hindû temples and many Jaina heretics.¹ Epigraphical research, as stated above (page 306), has brought to light the names of the Pallava sovereigns ruling here about the 7th century, and their contests with the Chalukyas of Bâdâmi and other powers. Pulikesin II. of Bâdâmi had invaded the Pallava kingdom about A.D. 630; Vikramâditya II., fully a century later, took Kânchî, and has left an inscription in the Kailâsanâtha temple; and again, about 870, it was taken by Krishna III., the Râshtrakûta sovereign.² When the rule finally passed out of the hands of the Pallavas into those of the Cholas, probably about the end of the 12th century, Kânchîpuram became the capital of the latter dynasty. Be this as it may, the two towns, Great and Little Conjivaram, possess groups of temples as picturesque and nearly as vast as any to be found elsewhere.