History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c11.s1.35

c11.s1.35

Kaḷabhras cannot be Karṇāṭakas obviously, as the Chāḷukyas themselves must have ruled over Karṇāṭaka and therefore over the Karṇāṭakas. Kaḷabhras must, therefore, be people different from the groups known to us otherwise. There was a people occupying the Pallava territory—the northern part in particular—whose name has hitherto been read as Kaḷvar in the Saṅgam works. They had a chief by name Pulli with headquarters at Veṅgaḍam (Tirupati). It is these people that are called Kaḷabhras in a Sanskritized form. Kaḷvar later Kaḷḷar in Tamil are called Kaḷamāḷ in Sanskrit. This seems to indicate a form Kaḷavar in Tamil which would become Kaḷabharu in Kaṇṇaḍa, Sanskritized into Kaḷabhra. I am assured by Pandit Mahamahopadhyaya Svāminātha Aiyar that the reading of the MSS. is Kaḷavar and not Kaḷvar. It is the irruption of these people into the south through the advance of the Pallava dynasty that brought about a great revolution in the Tamil country. The Māḷavas are a similar ethnic group with almost similar habits. They also occupied the territory on the northern and western border of the Tamil land. Their chiefs took the Tamil title Maḷavaraiyan which has become Maḷavarāyan which is still a common name in the Tamil country of Kaḷḷar families, Simhavishnu’s religious leanings were towards Vaishnavism which his very name suggests. It should, however, be remembered that the Pallava kings of Kāñchīpuram were some of them devoted to Śiva and some to Vishnu as the names of the Pallava kings indicate. Thus for instance, while there are names like Vishnugōpa and Kumāravishnu which suggest that the kings who bore such names were devoted to Vishnu, it is a fact that their sons and grandsons bear names like Skandavarman and Paramēśvaravarman which indicate their devotion to Śiva while names like Buddhavarman possibly indicate the Buddhistic leanings of this Pallava sovereign. But in the case of Simhavishnu the Udayēndiram plates ¹ of Nandivarman II clearly call him *Bhaktyārādita-Vishnu-Simha-Vishnu* in terms which leave no possibility of escape from regarding him as a Vaishnava.² None of the temples that this sovereign might have constructed for Hindu gods has been discovered as yet, though Prof. Jouveau-Dubreuil puts forward the suggestion that the Śiyyamangalam cave temple which contains an inscription of Avanibhājana, identified by Hultzsch with Mahēndravarman I, might have been excavated by Simhavishnu. ‘It may not be impossible,’ says he, ‘that the Śiyyamangalam temple which contains the images of the lion and the inscription of King Avanibhājana belongs to the days of king Simhavishnu (called Avanisimha in the Kaśākkuḍi plates). It is not impossible, in fact, that the *birudas* such as *Śatrumalla*, *Lalitānkura*, *Avanibhājana* were borne also by Mahēndra and by his father Simhavishnu.’ ³