History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c9.s2.1

c9.s2.1

that Vīrakūrcha was the first Pallava king. In the second place it is possible that Vīravarman’s immediate ancestor, presumably his father or grandfather, might have lost hold of the sovereignty of the Pallava kingdom owing to some unknown cause, one of which might have been the invasion of Samudragupta. If this were so, his date would have to be sought somewhere after Viṣṇugopa. Again, in the Vēlūrpāḷayam plates it is not stated that Vīrakūrcha who married the Nāga princess, was the first member in the family of the Pallavas or the first to acquire a kingdom and a kingly position in that family. This view is also in agreement with that of Dr. S. K. Aiyangar¹ who in his account of the Pallavas ascribes the marriage of Vīrakūrcha to the period immediately following the invasion of Samudragupta into the south and the consequent disruption. According to his interpretation, ‘Put in plain language this (the Nāga marriage) would mean that he married a Nāga princess and thereby acquired the title of sovereignty of the region over which he ruled. This obviously has no connection with the birth of Toṇḍamān-Iḷam-Tiraiyan, who, according to tradition embodied in the classical poem *Perumbāṉārruppaḍai*, was the son of a Chōḷa king through a Nāga princess . . . Neither the detail of the marriage nor the acquisition will agree with the story of Iḷam-Tiraiyan. . .’