History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c8.15

c8.15

*The History of the Period.*—As we have already pointed out it is not apparent who was the first member of the Pallavas who established the Pallava power in Conjeevaram. So far as we know Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan and Bappa are the earliest known names associated with the rule of the ancient city of Conjeevaram. The relation of the former with the latter is not known although certain scholars have advocated the view that he was the first member of the Pallava family. The entire absence of his name, and the name Tiraiyan itself or its equivalent in the Prakrit and Sanskrit records of the Pallavas lead us to reject this view. Our knowledge of this ruler is derived from Tamil literature and from tradition embodied in the Mackenzie MSS. The state of the city of Kāñchīpuram during the reign of this ruler is fully described in the early Tamil work, the *Perumbaṉāṟṟuppaḍai*, by the Śaṅgam poet Rudran-Kaṇṇanār. How the region passed from the hands of Iḷam-Tiraiyan into the hands of the Pallavas remains unknown. It is presumable that about the middle of the first quarter of the third century A.D. there was an invasion of the region from the north led by the Āndhra-Satavāhana rulers or generals in the wake of which the first member of the Pallava family must have acquired sovereignty over the region. A faint recollection of this invasion is recorded in the Mackenzie MSS. accounts concerning Toṇḍaman Chakravarti and Visvāvasurāja. Whether this was brought about by an immediate ancestor of Bappa or Bappa himself is not known. We may roughly fix the period of the passing of Toṇḍamaṇḍalam from the Chōḷa feudatories into the hands of the Pallavas about the closing years of the third century A.D.