History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c8.13

c8.13

Next in order of time comes the Guṇapadeya or the British Museum plates of Chārudēvi.³ This record gives in genealogical order the names of Vijayaskandavarman, his son Yuvamahārāja Buddhavarman and his son Buddhyankura. This record is dated in some unknown year of Vijayaskandavarman’s reign and records an order of the Queen of the heir-apparent consisting of the gift of land to the temple of Nārāyaṇa at Dālūra. At present it is difficult to say what relation the Vijayaskandavarman of this record bore to Śivaskandavarman of the first two Prakrit charters. It has been attempted by certain scholars to identify the Śivaskandavarman of the Prakrit charters with the Vijayaskandavarman of the British Museum record as the prefixes Vijaya or Śiva are too insignificant to matter much. But as this relationship is not given in any of the numerous genealogical lists of later times we cannot be sure whether the members of the Prakrit charters and the members of the Sanskrit charters were connected with one another in this manner. One striking fact which is a decisive consideration in this identification is the close similarity of the palæography of the Hirahadagalli and the British Museum copper-plates. As regards the period of these kings we have alredy indicated that it is the age which followed the decadence of the Andhra power, that is, the period from about the middle of the third century to the middle of the fourth century. If we calculate back from the known date of Viṣṇugopa the contemporary of Samudragupta, allowing about 25 years for each generation we arrive at A.D. 215 for the reign of Bappa the earliest known Pallava sovereign of Kāñchī. This calculation is only approximate as it is unlikely that the reign-period of all the kings was the same and is based upon the supposed contemporaneity of Samudragupta and Viṣṇugopa, and the probability that Viṣṇugopa of the Samudragupta pillar inscription was a Pallava king.