History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c6.s2.3

c6.s2.3

The Śangam works although they mention several kings and chieftains in the Tamil land contain no mention of the Pallavas (even where they actually describe Kāñchī), or of any member of the various Pallava dynasties known to us from inscriptions. The inference seems, therefore, to be fully justified that the Pallava kings reigned after the age of these Śangam works. Otherwise it is difficult to understand the silence of these works about the dynasty of the Pallavas of Kāñchī especially as we learn from them that the region around Kāñchī was ruled over by Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan, one of the Chōḷa viceroys. The Śangam works however mention a people known as the Toṇḍaiyar among others who are sometimes considered to be the same as, or closely related to, the Pallavas.² But the available evidence does not seem sufficient to warrant our identifying the Toṇḍaiyar with the Pallavas as the former term appears to be a tribal name like the Aruvāḷar, Vaḍavar, etc., while Pallava looks more like a family name than that of a tribe. One Śangam work called *Perumbāṇārrupadai*, written by Rudran-Kaṇṇanār who has also celebrated the Chōḷa king Karikāla and his capital town Kavēripaṭṭinam, is mainly devoted to a description of the condition of Kāñchī during the rule of Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan who appears to have preceded the Pallava kings at Kāñchī and who, according to certain scholars, was an early Pallava king. With the exception of this poem the other pieces in the Śangam works do not contain any reference either to Kāñchī during the age of the Pallavas or about the Pallavas themselves. Suggestions have been put forward that the Pallavas were foreigners to the south, that the Pallava power was superimposed upon the Tamil land, and that the Tamils therefore scrupulously omitted to mention them, and, even when they did so, mentioned them with contempt. As an illustration the definition in the Pingalandai which gives us the synonyms for the Pallavas, includes terms such as Kayavar, Patakar and Niśar. But against this it must be said that this reference does not apply to the Pallava kings who are referred to in the Tēvāram hymns and in the works of some of the Vaishṇava Āḷvārs of the eighth century in terms of praise.¹