History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c5.15.4

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.