History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c5: Introduction
History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c5
- Language
- English
Contents
- c5.5 — 4 parts
- c5.6 — 4 parts
- c5.10 — 4 parts
- c5.13 — 4 parts
- c5.14 — 5 parts
- c5.15 — 4 parts
- c5.17 — 4 parts
Introduction
c5.1
THE following pages embody the work of Mr. R. Gopalan, M.A., a Research Student at the University, who took up for his subject the History of the Pallavas of Kanchi. He worked through his full term, and the thesis incorporates his work on the subject. The thesis of just a little over 160 pages constitutes a dessertation on the Pallavas, which takes us as far as we can proceed on the subject with the material at our disposal. Many of the difficulties in the subject have been brought nearer to solution by the work of a number of scholars, all of which is considered in the work. It does not pretend to have solved all questions connected with the history of the Pallavas finally, but it may be stated that Mr. Gopalan's work carries us as near to an up-to-date history of the Pallavas as, in the circumstances, is possible.
c5.2
Our purpose in this introduction is to draw attention to the salient features of the thesis and indicate points where more light would be welcome. Such advance as was possible in the study of the subject within the last year or two is also incorporated with a view to completing the work of Mr. Gopalan and to invite examination and criticism by those interested in Indian Historical Research.
c5.3
The name Pallavas has been a problem for scholars, and has received attention from time to time from several of them, offering explanations of various kinds; the doubt and the difficulty alike have arisen from the fact that a race of people called ‘Pahlavas’ were known and are referred to as such along with the Sakas and others, both in the North-west of India and nearer in the North-western coast of the Dakhan. This, in literary texts sometimes takes the alternative form ‘Pallava’, and thus two forms, ‘Pahlava’ and ‘Pallava’ occurring side by side, give colour to the assumption that the two words are identical. They are indeed identical in form, but do not preclude the possibility of another word assuming this identical form. The word ‘Pallava’ as it applies to the rulers of Kanchi is undoubtedly and invariably a later form. We do not meet with the form ‘Pahlava’ in connection with the Pallavas of Kanchi in any record of their time. The question therefore would naturally arise whether we need necessarily regard the name ‘Pallavas’ as applied to the rulers of Kanchi as at all equivalent to the other ‘Pallavas’ either as a word or in regard to what the word stands for. The word as applied to ‘Pallavas’ in the first instance seems to be a translation of the Tamil words ‘Toṇḍaiyar’ and ‘Toṇḍamān’, and this finds confirmation in some of the copper-plate charters, which do bring in tender twigs of some kind in connection with the eponymous name ‘Pallava’. This undoubtedly is a later use of the term, but gives the indication that even at that comparatively late period, the traditional notion was that they were not foreigners, such as the Pahlavas would have been. In all the material that has been examined, there is nothing to indicate either the migration of a people or even of a family that migh have ultimately raised itself into a dynasty from the North-west, so that the assumption of a connection between the one set of people and the other rests upon the mere doubtful ground of a possibility, whereas the translation or adaptation of a Southern word into Sanskrit is very much more than a possibility, as indeed a word like ‘Dravida’ or ‘Dramida’ would clearly indicate. The distinction that Rājaśēkhara makes between the Southern Pallava and the North-western Pahlava seems in the circumstances to be a crucial indication that in the estimation of scholarly folk of the ninth and tenth centuries, the two were to be regarded as distinct from each other. The foreign origin of the Pallavas therefore seems to have no ground to support it.
c5.4
The Pallavas seem nevertheless to have been foreign to the locality as far as our evidence takes us at present. The rulers of Kanchi had continued to be known as Toṇḍamāns all through historical times. The people of the locality were similarly known as Toṇḍaiyar, the region occupied by the people consequently Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. These names are all traceable in South Indian literature in the period of prominence of the Pallavas and even before. The name Pallava however is used generally in the charters ever since the Pallavas issued charters, so that historically speaking we would be justified if we took Pallava and Toṇḍamān to be synonymous, and this receives support in the use of the compound expression in one of the poems of Tirumaṅgai Āḻvār, ‘the Pallava, who is the ruler of the Toṇḍaiyar’ (*Pallavan Toṇḍaiyar Kōn*). Therefore it is not as if literature did not know the term; much rather literary use regarded the two as synonymous, so that the Pallavas, whoever they were, were Toṇḍamāns, rulers of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam undoubtedly.
c5.5.1
So far as the Pallavas of the charters are concerned, whether the charters be issued in Prakrit or in Sanskrit, they are termed, the Pallavas of Kanchi, though several of the charters happened to be issued from localities comparatively far to the north of Kanchi. Several of the places in which their inscriptions and copper-plate charters have been found, or from which these were issued, are capable of location from the Bellary District eastwards up to the River Krishna in the north. Even so they seem to exclude the region which might geographically be described as the region of the Nalla Malais and the Pacha-Malais extending southwards along the mountainous tracts of the Eastern Ghats till we come past Tirupati into Chittoor, and the Bay of Bengal. From the Śaṅgam literature so-called of Tamil, we are enabled to make the following distribution of peoples, if not exactly of rulers and dynasties. The Pāṇḍya country was in the extreme south extending from coast to coast. The Chēra extended northwards from it along the coast stretching into the interior indefinitely, the actual eastern boundary varying from time to time almost up to the frontiers of Karur. Therefrom went northwards up to the borders of the great forest the territory known to Tamil literature as Koṅkānam (Konkan), over which ruled a particular chieftain known as Nannan till he was overthrown by the Chēras.
c5.5.2
The east coast region, however, beginning with the River Veḷḷār flowing across the state of Pudukottah now and emptying itself into the Bay of Bengal which marked the orthodox southern boundary of the Cholas, constituted the Cholamaṇḍalam which actually extended northwards therefrom to as far as the River South Pennar where began the division known as Aruvānāḍu, which extended northwards along the coast almost as far as the Northern Pennar. This last division fell into two parts, Aruvānāḍu or Aruvā South and Aruvā Vaḍatalai or Aruvā North. The region set over this in the interior including perhaps even a considerable part of what is marked off as Aruvānāḍu constituted the Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, a division occupied by the Toṇḍayar and belonging to them. It is this Toṇḍamaṇḍalam that was dominated by Kanchi and extended vaguely northwards as far as Tirupati, which seems to have marked off the northern boundary, which sometimes extended farther northwards quite up to the northern borders of the Pulicat Lake, the region round Kāḷahasti on one side of it at any rate, being borne in the old accounts even now as Toṇḍamān Magani. We have evidence of an old chieftain by name Tiraiyan ruling over the territory dominated by Veṅgaḍam or Tirupati whose capital was in a place called Pavattiri (Reddipalem in the Gudur Taluk of the Nellore District).
c5.5.3
At one time this region was known as Kākandināḍu, ‘submerged by the sea,’ Kākandi being the name of the Chola capital, Puhār, because of the semi-historical ruler, Kakandan. It seems as though this territory was a new conquest to which was given the name from the capital of the conquering rulers. Whether the name was actually so given to it or no, it is evident that the region was ruled by a Tiraiyan chieftain who is referred to in the poems of the *Ahanāṉūṟu* as Tiraiyan merely without a qualifying adjunct. The Chola Karikāla is given credit in tradition which has come down to us for having cleared forests, constructed tanks and made other irrigation works, and thus introduced civilization in Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, which till then remained, from the point of view of the Chola country, uncivilized. Chola viceroys were thereafter appointed at Kanchi, and the territory ruled over by the Viceroy at Kanchi is generally referred to as Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. What is traditional in the story finds confirmation in the Śangam poem *Paṭṭinapalai* and in another poem by the same author *Perumbāṇāṟṟupaḍai*, which had for its hero the Toṇḍamān Iḷam-Tiraiyan as he is known to literature. He is described in the poem as of Chola birth and as a powerful ruler of Kanchi and is ascribed a descent from the Cholas, nay in fact the family of Rama, as in fact in the later Pauranic genealogy of these Cholas some of the Ikshvāku rulers are made to figure.
c5.5.4
This traditional connection is on a footing with that between the Ikshvākus and the Gurjara Pritiharas of Kanauj. During this period and almost contemporaneously with the Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan, the territory of the elder Tiraiyan seems to have been held in power by a chieftain generally associated with Vēṅgaḍam and described ordinarily by the name Pulli, chief of the Kaḷvar or, as the correcter reading would warrant, Kaḷavar. The forest region therefore in the middle seems to have constituted a block inhabited by the people Kaḷavar who had their tribal ruler with headquarters at Vēṅgaḍam. That is the position that we derive from the Śangam literature of Tamil as such. Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan passed away and with him Śangam literature as well perhaps, and we are left in the dark altogether as to what had befallen Kanchi or the territory dependent thereon. That is the Tamil side of the evidence from the Śangam literature leaving aside the question of the age of the Śangam for the present.
c5.6.1
On the other side of it, the region round Adoni is described in early inscriptions as Sātāhani Āhāra, sometimes as Sātavāhani Rāshṭra perhaps giving us the indication that it was a settlement of Sātavāhanas, which may be recent or early. It probably indicates that the Sātavāhanas were perhaps not exactly native to the locality, but acquired the territory and gave it their name to mark a new acquisition unless it be that other people called it by that name as the homeland of the Sātavāhanas. In either case, we find the Sātavāhana rulers on this border of the Tamil country, and one of the inscriptions of Pulumāvi mentions a great Sātavāhana general, Maha Sēnātipati Skandanāga, probably an earlier governor of a troublesome border country. The records of the Pallavas similarly have reference to this region, and are couched in a form like the Sātavāhana inscriptions in regard to language, the details of the definition of time, and even such details as do occur in regard to the very nature of the administration itself. The provenance of the ship-coins of lead or potin sometimes ascribed to the Pallavas, but more generally taken to be Sātavāhana coins, in the region extending from the Northern Pennar to the Southern gives an indication of an effort of the Sātavāhana to bring this region under their authority.
c5.6.2
The references to the successful struggle against the Āryans, which some of the Chola monarchs claim to themselves as well as the Malayamān ruler of Tirukovilūr perhaps is a reflex of this effort on the part of the Sātavāhanas. When the Pallavas therefore emerged from this region—and we are given the information in the earliest Pallava charter that the first great Pallava ruler of the locality referred to as Bappa Deva made a free distribution of a hundred thousand ox ploughs, etc., we seem to be introduced to an effort at civilizing the locality appearing very like an extension of the effort of Karikala to civilize Toṇḍamaṇḍalam itself. This will appear clearly from the sequel. The Pallava charters themselves seem to argue a connection with the Sātavāhanas of a more or less intimate character, political as well as institutional. This seems clear from the Prakrit charters much more pronouncedly than perhaps even the Sanskrit ones. The conclusion to which the epigraphists have arrived that the Pallavas of the Prakrit charters were earlier and ought so to be regarded seems well warranted by the circumstances of the case and the character of the documents as such. That these early rulers issued their charters in Sanskrit and Prakrit indifferently at the same time, and must be regarded as the same people is a conclusion which while it may cut the gordian knot seems to have little to justify it on the basis of the facts of the position.
c5.6.3
Superficial paleographical resemblances cannot be held to upset the more certain evidence of institutional continuity to which the Prakrit charters unmistakably point. Since the Pallavas issued their charters in Prakrit and of a style like that of the earlier Sātavāhana charters, does it not seem reasonable to argue that the early Pallavas of the Prakrit charters were officers of the Sātavāhanas, or at least officially connected with them and dependent upon their authority? It seems therefore reasonable to argue that the Sātavāhana governors of the south-eastern frontier gradually extended their territory, civilizing it as they conquered it, introducing the arts of agriculture and ultimately made themselves masters of the locality and extending southwards when the Tamil powers weakened to take into their territory Kanchi and Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. It was the conquest of this that gave them the standing to make themselves real rulers and whatever of title was wanting in it was made good ultimately by a marriage which brought along with it a further addition to the territory. This becomes clear both from the account that Mr. Gopalan has given of succeeding events as well as from the analysis of these inscriptions which he has provided in the appendix. The Pallavas of the Prakrit charters call themselves rulers of Kanchi. So do the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters.
c5.6.4
But at the outset those Pallavas that issued these Sanskrit charters lay claim to having acquired their royal position by an influential marriage with a Nāga princess and by that means became ‘possessed of a wife and a kingdom simultaneously’ This could only mean that the Nāga alliance brought in an accession of territory which put their claim to independent rule on a really more legitimate footing than that of mere conquest or occupation, which might have been regarded as a mere act of usurpation.
c5.7
In the empire of the Sātavāhanas which began to break up early in the third century, the dismemberment seems to have been due somewhat earlier to the provincial governors setting themselves up in some kind of independence. The south-western block seems to have remained in its integrity the latest, while the aggressions of the Kshatrapas in the north and north-west to some extent, and the advance of the Vākāṭakas from the middle to a larger extent, deprived them of what was the headquarters block of the Sātavāhana empire. The eastern and south-eastern portion must similarly have separated themselves, and we find on the farther side of the Krishna river the Sālankāyana first and Vishnukundins later occupying the territory north of the Krishna. There was perhaps similar disintegration noticeable further south along the East coast, so that when (about a century after the passing away of Andhra rule completely), Samudragupta's invasion came south, there were many kingdoms in the region which submitted to his authority and accepted a feudatory position to his overlordship. A ruler of Kanchi by name Vishnugopa figures in the list, and although he is not called a Pallava in the Samudragupta inscription—we have no right to expect this where every ruler is simply defined by references to his capital, not to his family or dynasty and Vishnugopa was ruler of Kanchi—leaves but little doubt, and the occurrence of a number of Vishnugopas in the list of Pallava rulers of Kanchi leaves us in no uncertainty that this Vishnugopa was as well a Pallava ruler. It is this disturbing influence of Samudragupta's invasion that introduced a change, which necessitated the succeeding ruler of Kanchi to make an effort at legitimizing his own particular position as ruler of Kanchi. This was done, in all probability, by a marriage alliance with the heiress of the south-western block of the Sātavāhana territory, the territory dependent upon the viceroyalty of Banavasi. The rulers were known generally as Chūṭu Nāgas, and, if a princess of that family had been married to a Pallava, it would be a Nāga alliance that would give at the same time a sort of a claim to the territory of which she was heiress to the Pallavas. Otherwise the overlordship claimed by the Pallavas and acknowledged readily by the Gangas, and none the less acknowledged though less readily by the Kadambas, would be inexplicable. Mayūraśarman almost shows himself rebel against Pallava authority. The Ganga rulers readily acknowledged it, two of their kings having been installed by their Pallava overlords Simhavarman and Skandavarman. This means that the Pallavas claimed authority over the whole of the territory of the Sātavāhanas in the south, and that is what really accounts for the implacable enmity between the Great Pallavas and the early Cāḷukyas, who became rulers of the territory in the immediate neighbourhood of the kingdom of Banavasi of the Kadambas. It seems, thefore, clear that the Pallavas began as officers of the Sātavāhanas and ultimately rose to undisputed possession of the territory of Kanchi, the right to which they strengthened by an alliance with the heiress of the southern block of the Sātavāhana territory, thus in a way becoming titular descendants of the Sātavāhanas over the whole of the southern region of Sātavāhana territory including in it their own new conquest, the territory of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam dependent upon Kanchi.
c5.8
From what is stated in the foregoing pages, it would have become clear that the Pallavas of the charters starting from the south-eastern marches of the Sātavāhana territory gradually occupied the region of Kurnool, Nellore and part of the Cuddapah Districts, and extended southwards till they gradually appropriated the town of Kanchi itself and the territory dependent thereon, in other words, what is known to the Tamils as Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. In this process of gradual conquest and appropriation of the territory intervening the south-eastern frontier of the Andhra kingdom and the northern viceroyalty of the Cholas, they must have dislodged the people who were in occupation of the territory under the elder Tiraiyan of Pavattiri, and latterly the chiefs of Vēṅgaḍam, of whom Pulli's name is familiar to the Śaṅgam literature. It is this dislodgement of the tribe of people known hitherto as Kaḷvar, but more appropriately speaking, Kaḷavar, that brought about the disorder in the territory lying immediately to the south of the Nellore District extending southwards to the banks of the Kaveri. It is this region that gets involved in the Kaḷabhra¹ trouble and the process of expansion of the Kaḷabhras is reflected in the disorder and unsettlement which is noticeable even in the kingdom of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters. The period beginning therefore with the middle of the third century and extending onwards is the period of these migrations of the Kalabhras from their original home in a general southward movement, which overturned the territory of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, created confusion and disorder and brought about even the ultimate extinction of the well-established monarchies of the Tamil land. It is a movement like what is actually under reference in the details that we get of a Kalabhra interregnum, as the epigraphists call it, from the Veḷvikudi plates of the Pandyas of the latter half of the eighth century A.D.
c5.9
¹ For a detailed account of the Kaḷabhras see my paper ' The Kaḷabhra interregnum and what it means in South Indian History ' presented to the International Congress of Orientalists held at Oxford, August 1928.
c5.10.1
Any reasonable investigation of this particular question requires a general idea of the whole position. Without assuming too much, we may take it that these are known facts in regard to the Pallavas. The first, according to generally accepted opinion, is that the earliest of them issued charters in Prakrit much in the style of the Sātavāhana charters, of which we have knowledge of the localities concerned. Three or four generations of these Pallavas happen to be known. The Allahabad Prasasti of Samudragupta makes mention of a Viṣṇugopa of Kanchi. Without pausing to enquire whether this Viṣṇugopa was a Pallava or no—there is nothing in the context of the inscription to indicate that he was not a Pallava as no ruler is mentioned by his dynastic name, but all of them are associated with their capitals—Viṣṇugopa must have been a ruler of Kanchi contemporary with Samudragupta. This may be taken to be the second established fact. Then it is that we come upon a confused dark period where more light would certainly be welcome. But soon after, for a couple of hundred years, we find a dynasty of rulers, the order of whose succession, we cannot as yet fix very definitely.
c5.10.2
These rulers for some reason or other issued their charters always in Sanskrit, and called themselves invariably rulers of Kanchi, although some of their charters were issued from various ‘victorious camps’ of which there are as many as three or four capable of location in the Nellore District, that is, the region north of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam proper. With these few main facts, which may be taken as established, we have to build up the history of the period from such glimpses as we get of details by setting them in a reasonable order on the basis of what is generally known. One general fact of Pallava history of this period—the period of the Sanskrit charters—is that it was a period of some amount of confusion, in which the succession to the throne itself could not have been in any very regular established order. There had been wars to the north, and wars to the south, and confusion in the interior of the territory of the Pallavas themselves. That seems to have been a period in which the Kadambas rose to power and the Gangas came into historical view on the one side. The Cholas almost passed into oblivion and the Tamil country suffered some kind of a confusion, as to the nature of which we have been in the dark till the Veḷvikudi plates threw some light upon it by stating categorically that a certain set of rulers, at the head of the people Kaḷabhras, overthrew the Tamil rulers of the south, the famous three crowned kings of Śangam literature.
c5.10.3
What is the cause of all this confusion and what is it that could satisfactorily explain all the facts mentioned above categorically? We have a specific lead in the Veḷvikudi plates for this, namely, that the Kaḷabhras came into the Tamil country as far south as the territory of the Pandyas, and upset the settled order to the extent of destroying a *Brahmadēya* gift (a free gift of land to Brahmans) which in orthodox parlance implies the destruction of a settled order of rule by the creation of a very considerable amount of confusion in the administration. If we could know something of these Kaḷabhras, we may possibly throw some light upon the causes of all the confusion in the history of the Pallavas during the period. For this again, there is a certain amount of light that we can derive from the Veḷvikudi plates themselves. The plates were issued by an individual sovereign, who restored the grant to the living representative of its original donee on satisfactory proof that the village was originally granted in the manner claimed. His father, generally known to epigraphists by the titles Tērmāran Rājasimha, we know, beyond doubt, was a contemporary of Nandivarman Pallavamalla (cir. A.D. 717 to cir. A.D. 782). Alloting him to somewhere about the middle of the long reign of Nandivarman, we may roughly place him in about A.D. 750 or A.D. 740.
c5.10.4
We want six generations to come to the period when the Pandya country emerged from out of the Kaḷabhra rule and got back into Pandya rule, and a certain ruler by name Kaḍumkon is stated in the grant to have done this. Even allowing the moderate span of twenty-five years' rule to each of these six generations, Kaḍumkon's rule would come to somewhere about A.D. 600 more or less, bringing him roughly into contemporaneity with the first great Pallava ruler, Simhavishṇu. The period of the Kaḷabhra interregnum, according to the Vēḷvikuḍi plates thus coincides with the period of Pallava history under the rule of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters. If the Kaḷabhras created confusion in the Tamil country, they must have come from elsewhere into it. Wherefrom did they come? It is obvious that they did not come from the south. The Pandya country seems the southern limit of their reach. During the period, Chola rule seems to have gone into eclipse of a more or less thorough character. The natural inference therefore would be that they probably advanced southwards. If they were in the Chola country before coming to the Pandya, could we not reasonably infer that they had been in the Pallava country before coming into the Chola, or at least had something to do with the Pallava? If so, who could these Kaḷabhras be, why were they so-called, and what would be the cause of their southward migration?
c5.11
We have stated above on the authority of the Prakrit charters that the so-called Pallavas were viceroys of the south-eastern marches of the Andhra country, and they gradually extended their territory so as to occupy the region dominated by the hill Vēṅgaḍam, and ruled over by tribal chieftains, the earlier one known to literature being Tiraiyan of Pavattiri and the later one Pulli of Vēṅgaḍam. The latter chief is generally spoken of as the chief of the Kaḷvar in the so-called Śangam literature. But the learned editor of these works has since discovered that the correcter reading, on manuscript authority, would be Kaḷavar and not Kaḷvar. In the region which they occupied in the period of the later Sātavāhanas, and therefore the period immediately preceding that of the Pallavas, they had been a set of frontier people, at least somewhat predatory in point of character, accustomed to lifting cattle from the northern frontier and thereby flourishing upon it as a profession, and that is how Pulli is described in the Śangam literature. The tightening of the hold of the Pallavas even as viceroys of the Andhras by a pressure applied both from the north and west, must have dislodged these people from the locality of their denizenship, and set forward their migration which ultimately overturned the Toṇḍamaṇḍalam first, Choḷamaṇḍalam next, and a considerable part of the Pāṇḍyamaṇḍalam after that. Perhaps it is this disturbance, and possibly the confusion caused by the invasion of Samudragupta through some of these regions, that must have ultimately brought about the subversion of the settled order and the introduction of the confusion, from out of which emerged the Pallavas of Kanchi of the Sanskrit charters. That period, it will be found, is the period in which something of a radical change had been taking place in the south-western viceroyalty—the palatine viceroyalty of the Andhras—of Banavasi. We see in that region, a set of rulers who called themselves Chūṭu Nāgas, claim relationship with the ruling family of the Sātavāhanas and achieving political distinction by wars against the Śakas and the Kshatrapas, the enemies of the great Sātavāhana, Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi. In the best days of their power, their territory seems to have extended as far north as the Godavari, but it began to shrink on the northern side, so that they became a purely southern power. The illuminating detail that the Vēlūrpāḷayam plates give us of Virakūrcha becoming, heir to a kingdom by a marriage with a wife, by which, as is stated in the quaint language of the charter, ‘he simultaneously obtained a wife and a kingdom.’ This seems to be no more than his marrying the heiress of the Chūṭu Nāgas and, by securing a wife of that distinction, he became also the heir to that territory either in his own person, or, possibly better, in that of his son. It is this alone that can account for the very important historical fact that we know of in the history of the Pallavas later,—the acknowledgment of allegiance to the Pallavas by the Gangas, two successive rulers of the Gangas having been installed on their hereditary throne by the contemporary Pallavas. That seems to be the position also in regard to the Kadambas, who became heir to the territory of the Chūṭu Nāgas clearly by conquest, as the story of Mayūraśarman indicates.
c5.12
The Kaḷabhras then were the Kaḷavar of the region immediately north of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, who being dislodged by the pressure of the Andhras, penetrated the Toṇḍamaṇḍalam itself, and as the Andhra power itself advanced, moved southwards, occupying the territory gradually till in the course of generations, they subverted the Chola rule and spread themselves farther south, to the occupation of the territory of the Pandyas so as to produce the interregnum referred to in the Veḷvikudi plates in the Pandya country. This interregnum followed when the grant of the village Veḷvikudi was made to the Brahman and had been enjoyed for a considerable length of time by him and his successors. The interregnum itself must have lasted for some considerable time, and to justify the lapse of the grant being forgotten for five or six generations after the restoration of Pandya rule. The Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters therefore had to advance into the country dependent upon Kanchi, dislodge the Kaḷabhras or Kaḷavars that were in occupation as a normal continuation of the struggle which must have begun between them and the Kaḷabhras somewhat earlier, till they could master possession of the region. It is probably in this process of conquest that the invasion of Samudragupta introduced another element of confusion, to provide against which an alliance with the more powerful neighbour, the Chūṭu Nāgas of the west, must have been felt to be necessary by the Pallavas of Kanchi. Whether the Vishṇugopa of Kanchi referred to in the Harisena inscription of Sumudragupta is Kāṇagopa identified with Kumāraviṣṇu I is more than we can assert at present. It is possible that the Kāṇagopa of the later charters had a name Kumāraviṣṇu or Viṣṇugopa. But in the absence of any lead, such a statement would be nothing but a guess, and it may be safer to leave Viṣṇugopa the contemporary of Samudragupta unidentified with any of the names in the genealogy of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters for the present. When the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters established themselves in the region of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, their struggles with Kaḷabhras of the south must have begun, as a continuation of the struggle that dislodged them from the territory of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. It is this that is reflected in the statement that Kumāraviṣṇu retook the capital from some enemy undescribed, and that Buddhavarman, one of the rulers of this dynasty, won victories against the ‘ocean-like army’ of the Cholas, which at the time could only mean the Kaḷabhras established in the Chola territory, as about that time we do hear of a Kaḷamba ruler by name Acchyutavikrānta holding rule at the Chola capital, Puhār over the Chola Rāṣṭra, according to Buddhadatta, a contemporary of Buddhagosha. The establishment of the Kaḷabhras in the Chola country therefore seems to have been a settled fact by the middle of the sixth century. They were found there by Simhavishṇu at the end of the sixth; by Narasimhavarman I in the middle of the seventh, and by the Caḷukyas about the end of the seventh and almost the middle of the eighth centuries. It seems to be these Kaḷabhras that come into view later on near Tanjore and Koḍumbāḷūr as Muttaraiyaṉ chiefs bearing names and titles very much like that of Acchyutavikrānta. We come to the spectacle in the eighth century of the Tanjore chiefs being feudatories of the Pallavas and the Koḍumbāḷūr chiefs those of the Pandyas, and fighting against each other in consequence. The Kaḷabhra migration, the movement of the Kaḷavar southwards from their orignal home, seems thus to provide the explanation for the disappearance of the settled order in the Tamil country as portrayed in the Saṅgam literature and offers the explanation of the interval of obscurity and oblivion in Chola rule till the rising of the later Cholas to power in the latter half of the ninth century.
c5.13.1
The narration of events above, it would have been noted, assumes the existence of a period of prosperity reflected in the Śangam literature anterior to the coming of the Pallavas of Kanchi into the region of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam. The assumption is based on evidence which an effort has been made to upset by another assumption without any valid evidence, we should say, of a Chola interregnum in the rule of the Pallavas of Kanchi on the basis of the statement that Kumāraviṣṇu II had to retake his capital from his enemies. The difficulties against accepting this assumption are many and fundamental; anything like a capture of Kanchi by the Cholas and even its retention in the hands of the Cholas for some little time till recapture by Kumāraviṣṇu, would hardly satisfy the conditions of the Chola Karikāla’s capture of Kanchi, because the Chola Karikāla is associated, in the Śangam literature so called, with a succession of rulers extending over three or four generations, during which since his conquest Kanchi remained a Chola viceroyalty. The provision of an interval of that length before Kumāraviṣṇu II retook Kanchi would be on the face of it impossible.
c5.13.2
Karikāla is supposed to have introduced the arts of agriculture and civilization into the bulk of the region constituting Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, and the viceroyalty was held with distinction by Chola princes immediately following him and subsequently by an illegitimate scion of the Chola family, Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan, before it passed into the possession of the Pallavas of the inscriptions. There is not the slightest hint of all this in the various charters, of which we have information, and Bappa Dēva’s civilizing effort in the region farther north seems almost to indicate an extension of the effort of Karikāla. Looked at from any point of view therefore, it seems impossible to postulate a Chola interregnum in the middle of the succession of Pallava rulers of the Sanskrit charters and the effort seems to us futile. We have almost fifteen generations of rulers subsequent to the Samudragupta invasion. Although we cannot be very definite about the order of succession or of the detailed history of the period, the general trend seems clear enough to rule out the possibility of this interregnum. There is the evidence of the Śaṅgam literature by itself and the evidence of the later Pandya charters leading thereto, and they seem alike to negative this possibility.
c5.13.3
Whether the Śaṅgam actually existed or no, the existence of something like a Śaṅgam and of a body of literature known as Śaṅgam literature came to be an accepted article of faith among the Tamils at the commencement of the seventh century A.D. among the Tevāram hymners like Appar and Sambandar. For a tradition like that to grow and for a body of literature to get thus distinctly classified, we do require a certain efflux of time, and that could not be less than half a dozen generations or more, and thus the indication seems to be that the period of the Śaṅgam literature will have to be referred to a time anterior to the advent of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters into the region of Kanchi. A Chola interregnum associated with the name of Karikāla in the generations immediately preceding Kumāraviṣṇu II seems impossible of justification.
c5.13.4
The period of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters marks the advent of a new dynasty, their long, but fairly successful, struggle against hostile occupation of the territory of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam, probably by the Kaḷabhras, their assertion of their overlordship over the Gangas, and a similar recognition of their overlordship at any rate, by the Kadambas after a struggle ending in the final establishment of the Pallava authority there till Simhavarman, the father of Simhaviṣṇu the first Great Pallava, founded a dynasty of powerful rulers for the next two centuries and a half, all require the couple of centuries that are left between the invasion of Samudragupta and the accession of Simhavarman, the father of Simhaviṣṇu. The accession of these powerful rulers to authority in this region is almost coeval with the rise of the Chāḷukyas into view in the region north of their territory.
c5.14.1
The origin of the Chāḷukyas and their accession to power in the period with which their name is associated is somewhat obscure. Their habitual hostility to the Pallavas and the constant warfare between the two that this hostility brought about are facts recognized all round, although the reason for this constant hostility has been far from clear. The one is perhaps to some extent associated with the other, and an explanation of the hostility does not seem altogether beyond recovery. In the traditional stories connected with their origin, the historians of the dynasty or the heraldic custodians of their traditional origin gave them credit for association with the Ikshvākus of Ayodhya. Whatever the reason the association with Ikshvākus seems to have been fashionable even in this distant south at this particular time. The Chālukyas connect themselves with the Ikshvākus and some well-known Ikshvāku rulers figure in Chola genealogies when they began to appear. Even before the days of genealogies, the Toṇḍaman ruler of Kanchi is associated with some of the Ikshvākus in one of the Śangam classics. So the Chālukya’s claim to an association with the Ikshvākus, while historically possible because of the existence of Ikshvāku rulers in their neighbourhood in the Andhra country, still remains unproved in the face of the fact that they have to invent a kind of explanation, at the very best unsatisfactory, for the name Chālukya.
c5.14.2
This defect seems to make them an indigenous dynasty of feudatory rulers, who raised themselves to power gradually, and set themselves up independently. The fact of their obscure origin coupled with the boar ensign on the one hand, and the impossible derivation of the word from Sanskrit on the other, seem alike to indicate a southern origin for them on a reasonable basis. Feudatory dynasties placed in rule over the less hospitable regions of the Tamil country went by the name generally Velpula Araśar or Śalukku Vēndar. They were given the flag of the boar indicative of the nature of the territory over which they ruled and of the character of that rule. It is a family of chieftains like this probably that ultimately raised themselves to a position of higher dignity that became the Chālukyas of a later period. That this is so is reflected in the term sometimes being used in the form Salki, used as a term of contempt with reference to Salki Bhima, who is spoken of as a disloyal person. These petty chieftains seem to have risen first to power in the northern region of the Vākāṭaka territory, perhaps in succession to the Naḷas, or, at any rate, as one of the tributaries along with them.
c5.14.3
They then gradually spread southwards, extending their territory, and under the sons of Pulikesan I, they conquered the Kadambas and the Gaṅgas and so extended their operations gradually as to come into contact with the territory of the Pallavas with the set object of recovering the southern block of the territory under the Andhras included in the viceroyalty of Banavasi. It was stated already that the Pallavas probably laid claim to this very territory on the basis of a marriage, and naturally, therefore, the two powers had a reason for perpetual hostility on an important, and at the same time, a vulnerable frontier for both of them. Therefore it is that since the Chāḷukyas established their power by the conquest of the Naḷas, the Mauryas and the Kadambas, they are seen in the full tide of their hostility to the Pallavas and this hostility continued, now the one, now the other getting the better, till one of the dynasties, the Chāḷukyas vanished from Dakhan politics. That accounts for the Chāḷukya invasion in the reign of Mahēndravarman, who from his headquarters beat them back, and left it to his son to carry the war into the enemy’s country, destroy their capital and bring about an interregnum, which lasted for thirteen years.
c5.14.4
This happened at the end of the reign of Pulikesan II, and his son Vikramāditya was able to turn the tables upon the Pallavas and carry the war into their territory by a flank movement, so as to fight on the banks of the Kaveri near Trichinopoly against the Pallavas supported by all the Tamil powers this time. One of his successors was able to carry the war into Kanchi itself, occupied the town in his turn, and, instead of destroying it, as the Pallava Narasimhavarman had done at Vātāpi, their capital, not merely restored, but even made a fresh donation to the temple, showing thus distinctly that he was more humane in warfare than perhaps the Southern power. It is in revenge for this insult that Nandivarman Pallavamalla took the tide on the turn when, on the occasion of a marriage alliance brought about diplomatically between the Ganga princess, the daughter of Śrī Purusha Muttarasa, and the Pandyan prince, Neḍum-Śaḍaiyan Parāntaka, the donor of the Veḷvikuḍi plates, the Pallavas led the combination of the southern powers, in which the Pandyan minister got distinction, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Chāḷukyas at the battle of Veṇbai. Kīrtivarman II was so thoroughly defeated that the Chāḷukya power found it impossible to recover from the defeat. It is this again that was taken advantage of by the feudatory Rāshṭrakūṭa Dantidurga, himself, the son of a Chāḷukya princess to subvert the Chāḷukya power.
c5.14.5
He was able to do this by fortifying himself by an alliance with the great Pallava ruler Nandi to whom perhaps he gave his daughter in marriage and thus brought about his own elevation and the subversion of the dynasty of the early Chāḷukyas. The battle of Veṇbai is graphically described in detailing the achievements of the agnapati, Māran-Kāri of Karavandapuram at whose instance the grant was made. Tirumangai Āḷvār's reference to Rāshṭrakūṭa Dantidurga, under his title Vairamēgha, and the deferential treatment which Nandivarman Pallavamalla is said to have accorded to him finds justification in this and the question how the early Chāḷukyas were ultimately overthrown and the Rāshṭrakūṭas established themselves in their stead is now put on a clear footing.
c5.15.1
The accession of Nandivarman Pallavamalla to the Pallava throne and how it actually happened have alike remained a problem in Pallava history till recently. The publication of some of the Vaikuṇṭha Perumāḷ temple epigraphs¹ clears the doubt completely, though it does not altogether dispel the darkness that surrounded the actual character of his accession to power. From the epigraphs, it is clear that, when Paramēśvaravarman died, for some reason or other, the great citizens of the land had to be on the look out for a suitable successor. The position of the Pallavas at the time was far from easy. After some futile efforts they ultimately made up their minds to offer it to Hiranyavarma the collateral cousin through the younger brother of Simhavishnu; but Hiranya shrank from the responsibility as an old man and offered the chance to each one of his four sons in turn. The three elder ones refused the responsibility and the youngest of them all, Pallavamalla by name, or Paramēśvaravarman Pallavamalla, agreed to accept the responsibility with an alacrity which was disconcerting to the father’s paternal instincts. He was however allowed to succeed, and, when he reached Kanchi, he was duly installed under the title Nandivarman. Hence his full style Nandivarman Pallavamalla or Paramēśvaran Pallavamalla *alias* Nandivarman. This gives colour to some of the hymns of Tirumangai Āḻvar which celebrate the temple as Paramēśvara-Viṇṇagaram.
c5.15.2
It cannot now be taken that the Vishnu temple was founded by Paramēśvaravarman II, nor even by Paramēśvaravarman I. It now becomes quite clear that the founder of this temple is the Pallava prince to whom the Āḻvar makes so many direct references. All of them refer to Nandivarman Pallavamalla in his family name Paramēśvaravarman. That apart, the accession, according to these records is a peaceful one by the choice of the people and therefore come to legitimately. But there are other charters which broadly state, as is recounted in the following pages, that he came to the throne as a result of fighting and by an act of usurpation. The two statements it is possible to reconcile, and it is hardly necessary to take them as irreconcilable alternatives. The facts seem to have been these. A Chāḷukya invasion seems to have been imminent, and the constant hostility of this power on the northern frontier together with the rising activity of the Pāṇḍyas in the south made the position of the Pallavas in the middle one of extreme anxiety. The maintenance of the Pallava power intact meant a Janus-faced fight, south against the Pāṇḍyas and north against the Chāḷukyas.
c5.15.3
When Paramēśvaravarman II died, if the responsible people of the kingdom felt that the ruler that succeeded him should be a man of ability and resource, and not a child succeeding a comparatively inefficient rule of a father, their offer of the throne to Hiraṇyavarman, possibly a veteran administrator at the time, would have valid justification on the basis of the fitness of the person. The legitimate successor, Chitramāya, or, whoever he was, may have been comparatively young and weak; and even later, the fight that could be put up in his favour does not appear to have been strong enough to make this assumption unwarranted. It was a useful change though the actual successor happened to be a young boy of twelve, supported as he must have been with all the resources of his father and brothers, and other officers of the kingdom. Those whose sympathies were on the legitimist side would naturally call such a succession an act of usurpation, while to those of the opposite faction Nandivarman’s acceptance of the office was an honourable act of public beneficence for the well-being of the State. The thirteen or fourteen epigraphs that have been published throw very important light upon this position, and from these, what has hitherto been known regarding this succession receives fresh illumination.
c5.15.4
Nandivarman probably came to the throne and accepted the responsibility that it involved, by the invitation of those responsible for the welfare of the state, necessarily setting aside the legitimate claims of another prince of the family. The war which was a consequence necessarily, went against the legitimate prince, but the actual achievements of the general in behalf of Nandivarman seem fully to justify the anxiety of those who went out of their way to set aside the legitimate successor in favour of another. It need not therefore be the fault of Nandivarman Pallavamalla that he ascended the throne, not an act of his own, and merely for the sake of the position or the power that it carried with it. Though his earlier years were clouded by these wars, he managed to tide over these troubles both by successful war and by equally successful diplomacy, subverting the natural enemy, the Chālukyas in the north, and entering into a more or less permanent alliance with their successors, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas; on the south, he got into perhaps a treaty of alliance with the Pāṇḍyas, after a good deal of fight with them on behalf of the rulers of Kongu, whose independence all his efforts could not sustain. When he died, his kingdom could pass down to his son without any difficulty and Pallava rule continued for another three or four generations, for almost a century, without distress.
c5.16
¹ S.I.I., vol. iv, pp. 10-12.
c5.17.1
There has been considerable discussion in regard to the successors of Nandivarman Pallavamalla and a controversy has raged over the fancied displacement of the dynasty and by the succession of a new dynasty called till recently by the epigraphists (Ganga-Pallavas.) Inscriptions published since this hypothesis was put forward seem entirely to negative the position taken and with the information at our disposal now, there is hardly any need to maintain the hypothesis, whatever justification it might have had in its origin. Nandivarman was succeeded by Dantivarman his son, Dantivarman by another Nandivarman, and then followed Nṛpatunga in a regular line of succession, all of them tracing their descent through Nandivarman Pallavamalla. Why a certain number of these should be distinctly marked off and given the name Ganga-Pallavas is far from clear. That there was some kind of a family connection between the Gangas and the Pallavas may be readily admitted. That is a connection which the Pallavas had with other royal families as well, namely, those of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the Kadambas, taking the dynasty of Nandivarman Pallavamalla alone. A marriage alliance of this sort need not give a new direction unless we can specifically prove that a scion of the Ganga family through a daughter even, or through a Pallava princess set up rule in the territory of the Pallavas. For this, we have absolutely no lead.
c5.17.2
Comparatively minor changes in the titles of rulers at a certain stage of their history, or of the existence of a number of rulers simultaneously in the same territory, are not reasons that would justify a hypothesis as grave as this. What seems actually to have taken place is this. The Pallava-Pandya struggle in the time of the great Pallavamalla seems to have been more or less for the overlordship of Kongu to begin with. At some period of his reign that overlordship, if it was at any time exercised by the Pallavamalla at all, passed over to the Pandyas. To fortify this position, they entered into a marriage alliance with the Gangas across the Kongu frontier and this brought down upon them a great Chālukya invasion, as the Gangas were perhaps regarded as Chālukya feudatories at the time. Feudatory or no, the Gangas in alliance with the Pandyas would be a real danger on the flank of the Chālukya, having regard to the fact that they regarded the Pallavas as their standing enemies. That brought on the battle of Veṇbai which had for its ultimate result the subversion of the dynasty of the Chālukyas and the establishment, in their stead, of the rule of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas who apparently fortified their position by an alliance with the Pallavas. This for the time settled the question of the political relationship between the Gangas, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the Pallavas.
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