History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c7.s1.46

c7.s1.46

*Kurumba-Pallava identification.*—Certain writers are inclined to consider that the Pallavas were the same as the people described as Kuṟumbar figuring in some of the accounts of the Mackenzie manuscripts. As regards these people there is a great deal of vague and misleading ideas in the minds of most writers. Who are the Kurumbas? According to one of the Tamil *Nigaṇṭus*¹ certain hill chiefs known as *Kuṟunila-mannar* were known as the Kurumbas. But in the Mackenzie accounts these people are described as the earliest inhabitants of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam and said to have been given the name for their cruel ways. They are also in some of the accounts believed to have been responsible for the division of the region into twenty-four *koṭṭams*, most of which figure in Pallava and Chōḷa inscriptions. The story of the conquest of the region by Ādoṇḍaichōḷa, which will be described later on, is believed by Sir Walter Elliot, Sewell and others to have been accomplished in the eleventh century in the days of Kulōttunga Chōḷa, a supposition for which there is no evidence. It is believed by some that these Kurumbas were the same as the Pallavas. But there seems to be absolutely nothing which supports such a notion. There is no reference in the numerous inscriptions of the Tamil land that there was at any time a dynasty of the Kurumbas, or that the Pallava kings are identical with the Kurumbas. Hence it appears to be preposterous to accept the identification.