History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c7.s1.6

c7.s1.6

This theory, however fascinating to the imagination, rests altogether on the superficial verbal resemblance of the words Pahlava and Pallava.² There is no evidence whatever, as Mr. Venkayya himself admits, that the Pahlavas of the west coast moved into the east anytime during the second century A.D. At any rate there is no reference or reminiscence whatever in the large numbers of Pallava copper-plate inscriptions of any such migration. Mr. Venkayya presumes that it was the war of the Western Satrap Rudradāman, A.D. 150, with the Andhra king Gautamīputra-Śātakarṇi and his successor, that probably brought about in some manner, now unknown, the eastward movement of the Pahlavas in his service. It is indeed true that the minister of Rudradāman is called Suviśāka and described in the Junagadh inscription as a Pahlava. But no evidence of a positive character is available to connect him or his descendants with the Pallava kings of Southern India. For one thing this Pahlava minister of Rudradāman was not a ruling king. He is not moreover mentioned in any of the ancestral genealogical lists of the Pallava kings. In the second edition of his *Early History of India* Vincent Smith gave up this theory of Pahlava origin which he had adopted in the earlier edition of *Early History of India*, with the remark that it is more likely that the Pallavas were a tribe, clan, or caste which was formed in the northern part of the Madras Presidency, possibly in the Vengi country.³ Mr. Venkayya's objection against this view of indigenous origin of Pallavas is the apparent improbability of two tribes, the Pahlava in Western India and the Pallava in the delta of the Godavari, bearing the same name. Some of his other arguments against the indigenous origin of the Pallavas are ingenious and may be stated here. One is that the Pallavas never refer to themselves in their records as belonging either to lunar or solar race like other dynasties of South India such as the Chōḷas, Pāṇḍyas, Chāḷukyas, etc. Another is that none of the kings mentioned in the Purāṇas are to be found in the Pallava genealogy such as Manu, Śibi, Ikshvāku, etc. All these facts according to him, raise a presumption that the Pallavas of Southern India were not an indigenous tribe in the sense that the Chōḷas, the Pāṇḍyas and the Cheras were.¹