History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c5.5

Language: English

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.