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History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17: Part IV. Southern India [150 A.D.—350 A.D.] and Unification of the North and the South

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c17

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Part IV. Southern India [150 A.D.—350 A.D.] and Unification of the North and the South

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Southern India [150 A.D.—350 A.D.]

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and

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गायन्ति देवाः किल गीतकानि
‘धन्यास्तु ये भारतभूमि-भागे
स्वर्गापवर्गास्पदमागर्भते
भवन्ति भूयः पुरुषाः सुरत्वात् ’ ॥
[—the INDIA-ANTHEM,
*Vishnu Purāna*, II, 3. 24.]

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सम्यक् प्रजापालनमात्राधिगतराज्यप्रयोजनस्य ।
‘—[His majesty] to whom the raison d’être of acquiring
kingship consisted in rendering good government to the people.’
[—*Inscriptions of the Ganga
Dynasty of Southern India.*]

XV. The Subordinate Members of the Āndhra [Sātavāhana] Empire

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152. It will be convenient to have a retrospect of the Southern history to see its bearing on Northern India and the inter-connection between the South and the North before summing up the effects of the Gupta imperialism. The Purāṇas, from the time of the Āndhras onwards, give the subordinate ruling dynasties under the imperial power. They do so for three dynasties—the Āndhras (=Sātavāhanas), the Vindhyakas (=Vākāṭakas) and the Guptas. It is noticeable that when the centre of imperialism shifts from Magadha, when it goes from the Kāṇvāyanas to the Sātavāhanas, the Purāṇas begin to describe the imperial dynasties with reference to their places of origin and not by their dynastic titles. The Sātavāhanas are described as Āndhra, i.e., arising from Āndhra-deśa; similarly the Vākāṭakas are described as Vindhyaka, arising from Vindhyadeśa. And when the Purāṇas revert to Magadha the Guptas are again described by their dynastic title. We shall now study the Andhran imperial organisation as noted in the Purāṇas; the Vākāṭakan and the Guptan, we have already surveyed.

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153. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa state that under the Feudatories of the Andhras there were established five contemporary families:

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Vā. : *Andhrāṇām samsthitāḥ pañcha teshāṃ vaṃśāḥ samāḥ punaḥ.—Vāyu, 37, 352.*¹
Br. : *Andhrāṇām samsthitāḥ pañcha teshāṃ vaṃśyāḥ ye punaḥ.—Br. 74, 71.*²

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¹ Bibliotheca Indica Edition, Vol. II, page 453.

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² Bombay, Veṅkaṭeśvara Edition, p. 186.

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On the other hand, the Matsya, the Bhāgavata and the Viṣṇu do not give the number five, but describe three such dynasties. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa mention two dynasties by name, which they have in common with the Matsya and the Bhāgavata, viz., the Ābhīras and the Subordinate Andhras, but they imply three, saying that under the term ‘Andhras’ they are giving years for two dynasties. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa in counting the five dynasties probably included in their list the Muṇḍānandas and the Mahārathi house (the family of Kalyāṇa Mahārathi of Mysore) who are known from their coins.³ As these two dynasties ceased early, the other Purāṇas limit themselves to three. The Purāṇas give the years and successions of such dynasties which came down to the next Purāṇic epoch, that of the Vākāṭakas (‘Vindhyakas’). The texts are:

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³ Rapson, C.A.D., pp. 57, 60 (correction at p. 212).

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Matsya—*Andhrāṇām samsthitā rājye teshāṃ bhṛityānvaye nṛipāḥ*
*Saptaiv=Andhrā bhaviṣyanti daś=Ābhīras tathā nṛipāḥ. (271, 17-18).*⁴
Bh.—*Sapt=Ābhīr=Andhrabhṛityāḥ.*
Viṣṇu—*Andhrabhṛityāḥ sapt=Ābhīrāḥ*⁵ (where the Viṣṇu has misread the text quoted by the Bhāgavata,

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⁴ J. Vidyāsāgara's ed., p. 1160.

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⁵ J. Vidyāsāgara's ed., p. 584, Bk. IV, Ch. 24, Clause 13.

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taking *Andhrabhṛtyāḥ* as qualifying *sapt-Ābhīrāḥ*.)

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It is thus evident that the Matsya and the Bhāgavata do not give the number of the dynasties; they specify the Ābhīras and the ‘Subordinate Āndhras’ (to be distinguished from the Imperial Āndhras) as the subordinate dynasties under the Āndhras and established by the Āndhras. Mr. Pargiter has mixed up these two different sets of data as if all meaning one and the same thing, and prepared a new text which has become most confusing here. The Matsya gives one more dynasty by name, in addition to these two, the *Śrī-Pārvatīyas*, which is its independent and exclusive information. As the Matsya makes them contemporaneous with the Subordinate Āndhras, they also seem to have been established by the Sātavāhanas, but probably they were not so very important in the Āndhra times as the other two. We shall now take up the history of these three dynasties.

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154. The Āndhras, corresponding to the Viṣṇu’s Āndhrabhṛtyas, i.e., the S u b o r d i n a t e Ā n d h r a s, who are the first to be taken up for discussion by the Matsya, the Vāyu, and the Brahmāṇḍa, completed seven successions. The Bhāgavata agrees in this except that it places the Ābhīras before the Āndhras, which is not of much consequence as these dynasties were contemporaries. The standpoint of the Bhāgavata is probably territorial, surveying from the north. The Matsya, the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa give the durations. The Matsya manuscripts, by a majority, have the following reading on the two dynasties (1) the Āndhras (the Subordinate Āndhras) and (2) the Śrī-Pārvatīyas:—

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*Andhrāḥ Śrīpārvatīyāś cha*
*te dve pañcha śataṃ samāḥ.*¹

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¹ Pargiter, P.T., p. 46, n. 32.

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‘The Āndhras and the Śrī-Pārvatīyas—the two—(have) 105 years.’

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Against this, the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa give their text:—

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*Andhrā bhokshyanti vasudhām* *śataṃ* ¹ *dve cha śataṃ cha vai.*

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¹ P.T., p. 46, n. 33; śate in some MSS. is changed to agree with dve, while dve refers not to the years but to the dynasties.

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‘The Andhras will rule the land, the two (dynasties) for one hundred [years] and one hundred [years] respectively.’

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It is clear that under the term ‘Andhras’ the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa include two dynasties—the Subordinate Andhras who bore the imperial title and another, the Andhra Śrī-Pārvatīyas. Their duration in each case is of 100 years, against the 105 years of the Matsya. Dr. Hall's copy ² of the Brahmāṇḍa and the e- Vayu of Mr. Pargiter (which is really a Brahmāṇḍa MS.), give 100 years to the one and 100½ years to the other. Thus, in fact, all these three Purāṇas are describing three feudatory dynasties.

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² Wilson and Hall, Vāyu, P., IV, 208. P.T., p. 46, n. 34.

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The expression ‘the Andhras will enjoy the land (vasudhām, the earth,) shows that these latter ‘Andhras’ assumed imperial powers. We shall see presently that the Śrī-Pārvatīyas of the Andhra country did assume an imperial rôle, and that they were the first dynasty to do so in the South after the fall of the Sātavāhanas.

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155. The Ābhīras, according to the Matsya, had ten successions and 67 years (*sapta-shaṣṭis tu varṣāṇi daś Ābhīrās tathaiva cha; teṣu tsanneshu Kālena tataḥ Kilakilā-nṛpāḥ*). The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa too, give 10 successions to the Ābhīras, while the Bhāgavata gives them only 7, and the Bhāgavata does not give any duration. The Viṣṇu follows the Bhāgavata.

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156. To sum up: there were these three dynasties, two of which were established by the imperial Andhras, and the other also arose at the same time and evidently under them, who, though not of much importance at the time, acquired importance on the fall of the Sātavāhanas.

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Thus we have I. The Subordinate (bhṛtya) Junior Andhras, 7 successions, 100 or 105 years.

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II. The Abhīras, 10 (or 7) successions, 67 years. III. The Śrī-Pārvatīyas, 100 or 105 years.

Identification and History of the Subordinate Andhras

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157. The Subordinate Andhras are the well-known feudatory Sātavāhanas or Andhras in whose line flourished the two Hāritiputras of the Chuṭu Dynasty, who have left their inscriptions at Kanheri (Aparānta), Kanara (Banavasi) and Mysore (Maḷavalli).¹ These inscriptions cannot be dated earlier than 200 A.D. on the evidence of their scripts.² Although the Banavasi record has an archaic script, the Maḷavalli inscription of the same reign has characters of 200 A.D. The latter record is in line with the Kodavali inscription of King Chaṃdaśāti—the last but one king of the Sātavāhana line (E.I., XVIII. 318), whose date, as given in the record, has been calculated by Mr. Krishna Śastri as corresponding to December, 210 A.D., which is very near the Purāṇic date for that king (228 A.D., J.B.O.R.S., 1930, 279). The genealogy of the two kings—Rājā Hāritiputra Viṣṇu Skanda Chuṭukulānanda Śātakarṇi and of his daughter’s son Hāritiputra Śiva Skanda-varman, ‘lord of Vaijayanti,’³ has been carefully reconstructed by Prof. Rapson on the basis of the three inscriptions of the family, together with one inscription of the first Kadamba king.⁴ I cannot do better than adopt that reconstruction, having personally gone into the materials thoroughly. I, however, give a name-value to ‘Viṇhu Kadda’ as Viṣṇu Skanda:

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¹ Rapson, C.A.D., LXXXI, XLIII, XLIX, LIII-LV, Kanheri: A.S.W.I., Vol. V, p. 86; Banavasi: I.A., XIV, 331. Maysore (Shimoga at Maḷavalli): E.C., VII, 251.

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² Rice, E. C., Vol. VII, plate facing p. 252; I.A., Vol. XIV, 1885, p. 331, plate facing p. 332. Dr. Bühler considered the Banavasi inscription to belong to the end of the first or the beginning of the second century, but Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji considered it to be later. Prof. Rapson in C.A D., p. xxiii, would place King Hāritiputra scarcely before the beginning of the third century A.D.

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³ E.C., Vol. VII, p. 252.

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⁴ C.A.D., pp. liii to lv.

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King Hāritiputra Viṣṇu Skanda (Viṇhu Kadda) Chuṭukulānanda Śātakarṇi=Mahābhoji°-

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Mahārathi=Nāgamulanikā

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Hāritiputra Śivaskanda varman [Vaijayanti-pati].

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158. There is no doubt that the dynastic name is Chuṭu-[Kula]. The term Chuṭu has not yet been explained. It is the same word as the Sanskrit chuṇṭ—'to become small'. It survives in the word 'Chuṭia Nagpur' which means 'the minor' or 'smaller' Nagpur as compared with the bigger Nagpur in the Central Provinces. It is, very likely, a Dravidian word which was accepted by the Aryans. Chhoṭū=a 'younger member', is its modern Hindi equivalent which in Chuṭia Nagpur is still 'Chuṭu,' meaning a younger brother. Chuṭu and Chuṭu-kula should be translated as 'the Younger Branch' i.e., the younger branch of the imperial Sātavāhanas.

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159. According to the Purāṇas their family came to an end in the Vākāṭaka period, i.e., about 250 A.D., and that they had existed for 100 or 105 years. This will take them back to about 150 A.D. which was the most trialsome time for the Sātavāhanas owing to the rise of Rudradāman to power. Rudradāman's constitutional position has not been appreciated by Indian historians. His great strength lay in his legal status which no Śaka ruler, before or after, ever acquired in this country. His father had been fully thrown out. But he was elected king by the whole Hindu community of Kathiawar (Surāṣṭra) and the neighbourhood [sarva-varnair-abhigamya rakṣanārtha (ṁ) patitve vritena]. The S a u r ā ṣ ṭ r a s who elected him king had been a republican community according to the Arthaśāstra.¹ On his election, Rudradāman took an oath by which he gave an engagement which he reiterates and proclaims in his inscription at Junagarh, promising to remain true to his *pratijñā*, i.e., to his coronation oath.¹ Rudradāman’s oath and the whole tenor of his public declaration in his Junagarh inscription mean that he would behave up to his last breath like a true Hindu sovereign, and he illustrated it by saying that when his ministers opposed his decision to rebuild the Sudarśana lake on account of its heavy cost, he accepted their decision but rebuilt it from his private purse. We may take it that this elected king, behaving, as he did, like a Hindu of Hindus, must have become a very popular leader. He was learned in Sanskrit and the Śāstras, and adopted Sanskrit as his official language. He became a great menace to the Sātavāhana sovereign and he actually defeated that ‘Lord of Dakṣiṇāpatha’ twice, but followed the Hindu law of restoring a *bhraṣṭa-rāja*—a fallen enemy. His reign led to a new organisation in the Sātavāhana empire.

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¹ Bk. XI, [c. 125].

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¹ ‘satyapratijñena’; *pratijñā* is a constitutional term denoting ‘coronation oath’. See Jayaswal, *Hindu Polity*, ii, p 50.

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160. Under these conditions the Junior Dynasty—the Chuṭu Kula—along with a few other subordinate dynasties came into existence. To this period probably the ‘Chuṭu-kulānanda’ coins are to be assigned. The Junior Dynasty guarded the sea-coast on the west. Their capital was Vaijayantī in the Province of Vanavāsī (Kanara). We find their inscription at Kanheri in the North, and we find their coins in the South at Karwar on the sea-coast in the province of Vanavāsī. On the coins, read as of *Chuṭu-kuḍānanda* (No. G.P. 2),² although the letters look earlier than those of 150 A.D., the form of ‘*ku*’ with a thickened head, and the treatment of *anusvāra* placed just on the top of ‘*na*’ and the form of ‘*sa*’ are later. It seems that archaic forms lingered on the coins, which amongst themselves show a period of hundred years as covered by them. It is to be noticed that the coins were not struck in the personal name of any member of the Chuṭu family but their official title—the Chuṭu Kula [*Raṇo Chuṭukuḍānamdasa* ‘(coin of) the Pleaser of the Chuṭu Dynasty’]. And we find the same characteristics on the coins issued by the governor [of the Muṇḍaraṣṭra] Muṇḍānanda. Muṇḍarāṣṭra was a province in Andradeśa according to the Pallava inscriptions.¹

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² C.A.D., p. xxii, Plate VIII, G.P. 2, G.P. 3, 235

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¹ Coin No. 236 of the Muṇḍananda belongs to the same series. It was evidently connected with Muṇḍa-raṣṭra which occurs in the Pallava inscriptions [EI. VIII, 159]. [Muṇḍā in the Muṇḍārī language of Chuṭia Nagpur means a rājā.]

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161. These Chuṭu kings, the Subordinate Āndhras of the Purāṇas, being only a branch of the imperial dynasty, throw light on the caste of the Sātavāhanas. I have shown elsewhere² that the imperial Āndhras were Brahmins by caste. The description of the branch family confirms that view. Their gotra [stock] was ‘Mānavya’, essentially a Brahmin gotra and it was so recognised even after their time. In Mysore, Shimoga district, at Maḷavaḷḷi there was a Śiva shrine presided over by Maṭṭapaṭṭi-Deva to whom a Chuṭu king dedicated an estate and placed it as a Brahma-deya grant in the hands of a Brahmin called the Hāritiputra Koṇḍamāna of the Kauṇḍinya gotra. This gift is recorded on a six-sided pillar which was lying on the ground at Maḷavaḷḷi.³ The name and description of the Chuṭu king are: Vaijayantipura-rājā Mānavya-sagotto Hāritiputto Viṇhu Kadda-Chuṭu-kulānanda-Sātakaṇṇi, who had issued his order to his Mahāvallabha Rajjuka. This gift was evidently resumed by a subsequent government. A Kadamba king subsequently renewed the grant—‘with a very glad mind’⁴ (parituṭṭheṇa)’—‘for the second time’ giving to a descendant of Koṇḍamāna, a maternal uncle of the king and a Kauśikiputra. The grant covered the old property and an addition of twelve new villages, all specified by name, and the gift was publicly registered on the same pillar. The gift by the previous donor is described in this as ‘Śiva[Khada]vammaṇā Mānavya-sagotteṇa Hāritiputteṇa Vaijayanti-patinā puvva-dattitti’. Śiva Khada v a m m a n here which is put in the instrumental (as opposed to the Kadamba king who is placed in the prathamā), is the former king who had made the gift (puvvadatta). He is described with the same titles as in the inscription of Vishnu Skanda Śātakarṇi. It was a common practice in those days to add the word Śiva as a mere honorific before names. The king's name, according to his mother's inscription at Banavasi, was Śiva-Khada-Nāga-Siri, which at Kanheri, according to the same authority, is Khamda Nāga Sātaka. The word Śiva, therefore, was only honorific. Sāta and Sāti stand for Svāti which the Purāṇas give with several names of the Andhras. Svāti means 'sword'. His mother was the daughter of Vishnu-Skanda, spelt as Viṇhu-Kada (or, Kada) and Viṇhu Kadda, of the Chuṭu dynasty, who is also given the name Sātakaṇṇi in the Banavasi inscription. The former gift was actually made and recorded not by the Hāritiputra Śiva Skanda varman,¹ the lord of Vaijayantī, but by his grandfather Vishnu Skanda (Viṇhu Kadda²) Sātakarṇi. And when the second inscription mentions that the Kadamba king having heard that a gift had been made by Śiva Skanda-varman, 'with a glad heart' makes the gift a second time, it means that a confusion was made between the names of the grandfather and grandson; instead of writing the grandfather's name the grandson's name was written by mistake.³

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² J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 265-266.

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³ E.C., Vol. VII, Sk. 251-252, Nos. 263, 264.

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⁴ See correction by Fleet, J.R.A.S., 1905, p. 305, footnote 2. Dr. Fleet, however, has made a confusion in regarding Śiva Skandavarman as the name of the Kadamba king, while it is the name of the Chuṭu king, which has been made clear by Prof. Rapson, C.A.D., p. LIV.

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¹ The Kadamba king turns Sāta into varman, or adds it, which had become a style of royalty in his time, though it had not been so before.

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² I read Kadda, not Kaḍḍa. Compare 'da' in line 2 with da in 'Maṭṭapaṭṭideva', in 'nanda' in line 1 and in 'deyya' and in 'dinnam' in line 3.

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³ Or, that the gift had been last confirmed by Śiva Skanda, as in

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162. I have carefully studied the plate and I find it impossible to read Kadambānāṃ rājā before the word Śiva in line 4. I, however, find a reference to the prosperity of the Kadambas in the last line which shows that it is a Kadamba document and a Kadamba grant. The readable portion in line 4 which is the first line of the latter grant, is: Siva-Kha[da] vamaṇā Mānavya-sa[go]ttena Hāritiputtena Vaijayantī pati[na] (end of the line). Before Śiva there were two letters (raṇā), then a blank space. Before Śiva, Mr. Rice read Siddham jayati Maṭṭapaṭṭidevo Vaijayantī-dhamma-Mahārāje patikata-saujhāyichachchaparo Kadambānāṁ rājā, out of which I can read traces of jayati Mat.—Dha[m]mahā.jā . . . . . . After this what Mr. Rice read as dhirāje is not traceable but in its place I read ra[ś]ammā anpa.[ti] . . . ka . . . . Mr. Rice's pati kata, etc., gives no meaning. His dhi ra je pa ti ka ta corresponds to my 'ra[ś]ammā aṇapa-ti. I have no doubt that Dhammamahārājo followed (Mayū)raśammā āṇapa(ya)ti. A better rubbing and facsimile would disclose the true forms of the six blurred letters after pa and the four letters after ka and before raṇā. Mayūraśarmā was the first Kadamba king. He renewed the grant.

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It is, however, not a necessary corollary that the Kadambas came immediately after the Chuṭus. The Chuṭus and the Kadambas were connected, the latter being an offshoot of the former (§ 200). Some hostile power must have intervened and that was the Pallava. No room for speculation is left in view of the Talagunda inscription wherein Mayūraśarman is recorded to have carved out his fief at the cost of the Pallava territories, and was recognized as a chief in view of his lineage, of the Hārītiputra Mānavya.¹ The Chuṭus thus were superseded by the Pallavas in the latter half of the third century, and the Pallava king who effected it was the king before Śiva Skanda-varman the Pallava, i.e., his father who performed an aśvamedha. (§ 183).

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¹ E.I., VIII, 31-32 [insc. lines 2, 7].

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163. The Kauṇḍinyas who were on the scene as early as the second century A.D. were probably the same family who sent out a scion to Champā (Indo-China) to be the founder of the Kauṇḍinya kingdom there. They seem to have been imported from Northern India in the time of the imperial Sātavāhanas. The family was a very respected one. They are mentioned with respect in the two Malavaḷḷi inscriptions and were related to the royal family. We seem to the case of the Pallava grant published in E.I., I, p. 2, where the Pallava emperor confirmed the gift made by his father ('bappa' have a historical corroboration here of the Champā tradition of the Kauṇḍinyas. Champā received her colony from Southern India led by the Kauṇḍinyas. Another Kauṇḍinya, in the reign of Samudra Gupta, goes to Champā and reforms the society there. He was very likely connected with this family. The Kauṇḍinyas must have been in touch with their Champā branch, which would have been certainly to their advantage. In the second, third, and fourth centuries they were thus social leaders in the South and the Colonies.

Identification and History of the Ābhīras

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164. The history of the Ābhīras is greatly explained by the Purāṇic data. Although the successions of the Ābhīras number 10 or 7, they have only 67 years to their credit.

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Ābhīras a republic.

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It is commonly supposed that the Ābhīras of the time of the Sātavāhanas founded a kingdom under Īśvarasena whose inscription we find at Nasik.¹ That inscription gives two important pieces of information: (a) that Īśvarasena who is described as king and in whose 9th year the record is dated, was not the son of a king, his father Śivadatta is described only as an Ābhīra commoner [Śivadatt-Ābhīraputrasya]; (b) the lady donor of the foundation who deposited funds with certain guilds for the pious purpose of providing medicines for sick monks of all denominations, describes herself as the mother of the Gaṇapaka Viśvavarman and as the wife of the Gaṇapaka Rebhila, which indicates that the relations had been presidents of a gaṇa republic. It seems that the Ābhīras, who rise under the imperial Sātavāhanas, had been a republic and that Īśvarasena was the first to assume monarchical title (rājan). He is believed to have ousted the Śaka-Satrap between the years 236 and 239 A.D. The Matsya (§ 155) marks the end of the Ābhīras expressly before the rise of Vindhyaśakti, i.e. about 248 A.D. It seems that with the rise of Īśvarasena the Purāṇas close the republican and subordinate period of the Ābhīras with him. Ten or seven successions in 67 years could only mean republican successions, like the republican successions of the P u ś y a m i t r a s and the other M i t r a s which the Purāṇas give and which are similarly of short durations. We do find the Ābhīras again as a republican community when Samudra Gupta comes on the scene. Īśvarasena probably went out of the Ābhīra constitution and tried to found a dynasty. In his own time the existence of G a ṇ a p a k a s is noted in the Nasik inscription. He could be even a republican ‘rājan’, though, more likely, he was a new monarch outside; it is, however, certain that about his time the Ābhīras as a political community ended their allegiance to the Sātavāhana house. The recognition of the Ābhīra republic by the Sātavāhanas about 67 years before Īśvarasena would be dated at about 160 A.D. They were evidently set up by the Sātavāhanas as a buffer against R u d r a d ā m a n who had been greatly harassed by the republican Y a u d h e y a s and the M ā l a v a s. The Sātavāhanas would have noticed some points of advantage in having a republic next-door to their foe, the Satrap.

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¹ E.I., Vol. VIII, p. 88.

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165. The confusion between the two data (10 and 7) in the Purāṇas for the successions of the Ābhīras is due to the next figure in the Purāṇas, viz., for the Gardabhilas which is 7. The Bhāgavata gives them 10 and to the Ābhīras, 7; while the other Purāṇas give the Ābhīras, 10 and to the Gardabhilas, 7. It is a case of mistake by transposition. The other Purāṇas being unanimous, the 10 successions for the Ābhīras are to be preferred.

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166. In the time of the Kauṭilya, as noted above, there was the republic of the S a u r ā ṣ ṭ r a s in Kathiawar. The Ābhīras and the S a u r ā ṣ ṭ r a s seem to have been allied and akin to the Y ā d a v a s and the A n d h a k a - V ṛ i ṣ ṇ i s.

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Identification and History of the Śrī-Pārvatīyas.

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167. The identity of the Śrī-Parvata has been recently established by Dr. Hirananda Śāstri from the newly discovered inscriptions at N ā - g ā r j u n i k o ṇ ḍ a, i.e. ‘Nāgārjuna’s Hill,' in the district of Guntur, on the Kṛṣṇa. The inscriptions belong to the third century A.D. The hills which enclose a valley were fortified; there are remains of a brick fortification, the bricks of which are of the Mauryan type. The place was a strong military position and seems to have been a provincial capital since the Mauryan times or earlier. The natural defences were strengthened artificially by brick and stone fortifications. The bricks measure 20" x 10" x 3" which are the measurements of the bricks dug out at Bulandibagh.¹ It is evident that the place was a fortified capital of the empire of the Sātavāhanas, whose coins (forty-four in number) were found along with mason's tools in the remains of a monastery.

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¹ A.S.R., 1926-27, pp. 156 ff., 1927-28, p. 114; on epigraphy see A.S.R., 1926-27, pp. 185-189. [Since going to the Press I have received E.I., XX., i, where the inscriptions have been edited by Dr. Vogel.]

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168. Here remains of Buddhist stūpas with carvings in the style of Amarāvatī have been exposed by Mr. Hamid Kuraishi and Mr. Longhurst. Eighteen inscriptions were found by Mr. Kuraishi, fifteen of which are incised on marble pillars which stood round the Mahā-Chetiya or the Great Stūpa enshrining a relic of the Buddha.³ The inscriptions disclose the name of the place as Śrī-Parvata. We know the tradition that the famous Buddhist saint and scholar Nāgārjuna went to Śrī-Parvata and died there, which, curiously enough, is supported by the present name of the hill (Nāgārjuni koṇḍa). Yuan Chwang has recorded that Nāgārjuna was patronised by the Sātavāhana king.⁴ The inscriptions are in Prakrit of the Pāli type. A number of stone structures with decorations and original buildings were erected by certain ladies under the direction of the monk-architect Reverend Ānanda. These ladies were relations of a royal house called ‘the I k s h v ā k u [Ikhāku] D y n a s t y’. We have known this dynasty from three inscriptions discovered at Jaggayyapeta in the year 1882, and these inscriptions were assigned to the third century A.D. by Dr. Bühler.¹ The present inscriptions disclose the fact that several royal ladies were ardent Buddhists, while the kings were all orthodox Hindus, and their capital town (Vijayapurī) was in the valley close by.² Most of the inscriptions are dated in the reign of King Siri Vira-Purisa-data, between his 6th and 18th regnal years, whose date at Jaggayyapeta is the year 20. One inscription is dated in the 11th regnal year of Mahārāja Vāsiṭhiputa Siri Bāhu-vala-Chātamūla [or, Chātamūla II]. These inscriptions along with the Jaggayyapeta inscriptions give the following genealogy:

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² A.S.R., 1927-28, p. 121.

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³ The relic itself has been now found. Modern Review (Calcutta), 1932, p. 88.

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⁴ Watters, II, 200, 207.

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¹ I.A., XI, 256.

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² A.S.R., 1927-28, 117.

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³ Talavara seems to be connected with what in the Law Reports figures as 'tarwāḍ', which is equivalent to an impartible rāj. Mahā-talavara would mean a 'great rāja'—a big Jagirdār.

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⁴ Married to Mahādaṇḍanāyaka Khaṁda-Visākhaṁṇaka, of the Dhanakas.

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⁵ The names may be restored into Sanskrit thus: Virapurisadata = Vīra Puruṣadatta ; Chāmtisiri = Śānti Śrī ; Hamma-siriṁṇikā = Harmya-Śrīkā ; Chhathi = Shaṣṭhī (goddess Kātyāyanī); Chāta = Sāta [meaning, —'happy'].

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Dr. Hirananda Sastri's reading 'Bāhuvala' is correct (see plate 11) where it is a clear four-cornered b; Ehu° as read by Dr. Vogel is not borne out by the plate. In plate G the letter b is misformed, but the full form is in H where it occurs twice and in both cases it is clearly b.

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Vira Purisadata married three cousins, two of whom are called Mahādevī in inscriptions of the same date [E.I. XX, pp. 19-20]. Bhaṭidevā was probably the eldest queen, being the mother of Chātamūla II. There were four more royal ladies who made donations but their relationship is not given. Their names are:

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1. The Mahādevī Rudradhara-Bhaṭṭārikā Ujanikā (‘from Ujjain’), daughter of a Mahārāja. She with Chānti Siri gave 107 pillars and a large amount of dināras for the Vihāra attached to the Mahā-Chetiya.

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2. A Mahātalavarī, and the mother of the Mahātalavara Mahāsenāpati Viṇhusiri, and the wife of the Mahāsenāpati Mahātalavara Vāsiṭhiputa Mahā-Kumda Siri of the Prakiyas.

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3. Chula Chātasirikā, mahāsenapatnī, wife of the Mahāsenāpati Mahātalavara Vāsiṭhiputa Khamḍa-chalikiremmanaka of the Hiraṃñakas.

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There was a Mahārāja of Vanavāsa, to whom a royal lady of the Ikshvāku family [sister of Chātamūla II] was married. He was probably the last or one of the last Chuṭu kings, who from his title seems to have become subordinate to the Ikshvākus. It is clear that Chātamūla I was originally a mahārāja, i.e. to the Sātavāhanas; his title is generally omitted in the inscriptions, he being described merely as Siri Chātamūla of the Ikshvākus, and when the title is given [e.g. by his daughter, E.I. XX, 18 (B²)] it is always mahārāja, while Vira Purisadata [except twice] is always ‘King’ (Rājan). The son of the latter, Chātamūla II, is always ‘Mahārāja’ (E.I. XX, 24). This shows that the royal position was assumed by Chātamūla I and lasted for only one generation more, having been lost in the time of Chātamūla II. That Rudradhara-Bhaṭṭārikā was the daughter of the Mahārāja of Ujjayini proves that in the time of the Ikshvākus there was a Hindu ruler in Avanti, and not a Satrap, a fact confirmed by Purāṇic history and other sources. Rudradhara-Bhaṭṭārikā’s father must have been a member of the Bhāra-Śiva Empire.

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169. King Siri Chātamūla (I) had performed Agnihotra, Agniṣṭoma, Vājapeya and Aśvamedha, and was a worshipper of Mahāsena, marshal of the gods. They had the Ikṣvāku custom of marrying cousins. Their toleration of Buddhism is remarkable. Almost every lady of the royal family was a Buddhist but no king or any other male member has made a single donation in his own name, although they must have supplied funds to their ladies. The Ikṣvākus followed the religious policy of the Sātavāhanas, their late sovereigns. Their reign was peaceful. According to one of the inscriptions of the time of Vira Puruṣadata, visitors from Vaṅga, Vanavāsa, China-Chilāta, Kaśmīra, Gāndhāra, etc. and Ceylonese monks frequented Nāgārjuna’s Hill.

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170. According to the script of the inscriptions of the family of Chānti Siri, she lived in the third century. Bühler placed Vira Puriṣadata, who was nephew and son-in-law to Lady Chānti Siri, in the third century A.D.¹ The aśvamedha of King Chātamūla (I) seems to have been performed about 220 A.D., soon after the end of Caṇḍasāti, the last of the Imperial Sātavāhana dynasty in Andhra.² The same sacrifices were performed a few decades later by the Pallava king Śiva Skandavarman (Agniṭhoma, Vājapeya, Aśvamedha³), and with some Brahmanic additions and on a grander scale, by the Vākāṭaka Emperor Pravarasena I. The history of the North and the South here become interconnected.

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¹ I.A., XI, 258.

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² His record of about 210 A.D. is found there [E.I., XVIII, 318]. With the next king, Pulomāvi (III), the Purāṇas close the dynasty J.B.O.R.S, XVI], who does not seem to have succeeded to the whole of his predecessor's kingdom.

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³ E.I., Vol. I, p. 5. The adjectives applied to Śiva Skandavarman's father are borrowed from the Ikṣvāku style, denoting an immediate political succession: (Ikṣvāku) hiraṇa-koṭi-go-satasahasa-hala-sata-sahasa dāyisa. (Pallava) aneka-hiroga-koḍi-go-hala-satasahasa-ppaḍāyino.

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171. The family was of a good Kṣatriya stock from the North. They married cousins like the ancient Ikshvākus. They very likely had migrated to the South in the imperial days of the Sātavāhanas when the latter reached the United Provinces and Bihar. King Chātamūla I was the first Śrī-Parvata Ikshvāku to declare his full sovereignty, probably towards the end of his reign; it is significant that his name has been mentioned in the inscriptions without a title, except in the inscription of Bhaṭidevā where he is given his feudatory title 'Mahārāja.' Virapurisadata alone had the title of King. Chātamūla II is only known in the inscriptions by the feudatory title of Mahārāja. He sought to revive the Southern Empire of Dakshiṇāpatha, and he inaugurated it with an aśvamedha. The Ikshvākus tried to be the Southern political counterpart of the Bhārasivas of the North. Chātamūla (I) was evidently influenced by the example of the Bhārasivas who had already carried out their programme with success in the North and in the Central Provinces up to the frontiers of Andhra. The intimate connection of the Ikshvākus with the North is confirmed by one of the Ikshvāku queens being an Ujjayinī lady.

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172. We may take it that the Ikshvāku dynasty thought of empire-building after Chandra-Sāti Sātavāhana, about 220 A.D.¹ Taking the three generations, the family would have come to a close about 250-260 A.D., which would agree with the Purāṇas dating their fall with the rise of Vindhyaśakti. They had been brought into existence by the Sātavāhanas about the same time as the Chuṭus and the Ābhīras. The Chuṭus and the Ābhīras protected the West; similarly the Ikshvākus were posted in the East. Chātamūla II was probably the last king of the line. In the 10th year of a feudatory Mahārāja 'the lord father (bappasvāmin)' of Śiva Skandavarman Pallava, we find the Pallava government in possession of Andhradeśa, i.e. by about 270 A.D. (§§ 180, 187) the Ikshvākus have retired into the unknown. The time of these rules would thus approximately be: Chātamūla I (220-230. A.D.) Purisadata (230-250. A.D.) Chātamūla II (250-260. A.D.)

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¹ E.I., XVIII, 318. The inscription of King Vāsiṭhiputa Sami [svāmin] Chaṇḍasāti is dated in his 2nd year, in ma 1, he 2, di 1, which Mr. Krishna Sastri takes to be Mārgaśīrsha bahula prathamā and calculates to correspond with December, 210 A.D. Cf. the Purāṇic date for that king (228 A.D.-231 A.D.) in J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 279. The above inscription is at Kodavali, nine miles from Pithāpuram.

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§ 172 A. The Art at Śrī-Parvata which sculptured in the round a Śaka as a door-keeper¹ is to be referred to the Sātavāhana period. Giving the honour of a door-keeper to the Śaka antagonist would fix its period, and so would do also the Sātavāhana coins found in one of the monastery remains. The freezes, and the sculptures in the round, are part and parcel of the Art of Amarāvatī which may be called the Veṅgī School of Indian Art. It goes back to pre-Christian centuries as evidenced by the Amarāvatī inscriptions (E.I., XV, 267). I think the superb animated carvings of Amarāvatī are works contemporary with the Sātavāhana whose personal name was Shi-yen-te-ka or Shan-t'e-ka (Watters, ii, 207), which seems to me to represent Śāntakarṇa, a name which occurs thrice in the Sātavāhana list. The tradition which Yuan Chwang heard that the king was a patron of Nāgārjuna may be apocryphal, unless Nāgārjuna flourished in B.C. The original stūpa was, according to Yuan Chwang, by Aśoka. The Ikshvāku work was an imitation of the Sātavāhanas. Śātakarṇi II alone was rich enough to decorate the Andhra tope of Aśoka; he had a very long reign (100-44 B.C., J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 278) to accomplish it, which agrees with Yuan Chwang's description of the long life of the king; and his son's reign is a recorded date at Amarāvatī (Lüders, no. 1248). The story that Nāgārjuna gave Śāntaka Sātavāhana gold out of rock to replenish his treasury depleted in building the stūpa, may have its basis in his discovering and recognising the gold ores of Mysore or Bālāghāṭ. Nāgārjuna had specialised in the knowledge of metals and chemistry among his other achievements in a long life.

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¹ Modern Review, Calcutta, July, 1932, p. 88.

XVI. The Pallavas and their Origin

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173. The P a l l a v a s who superseded the I k s h v ā k u s and the C h u ṭ u s, the last remnants of the Sātavāhanas, have a most important position in I n d i a n H i s t o r y. They are the Vākāṭakas and the Guptas of the South. They introduced Sanskrit in the South as the Vākāṭakas did it in the North. They established Śaivaism as the State religion in the South as the Vākāṭakas did the same in the North. Just as the Guptas gave a permanent stamp of Vaishṇavism on Northern India which has come down to our own time, so the Pallavas imprinted Śaivaism on Southern India which has come down to us. As the Vākāṭakas and the Guptas unified Northern India, so the Pallavas established the unity of the South which came down to the last days of Vijayanagara. The Pallavas beautified the South with sculpture and architecture, just as the Vākāṭakas and the Guptas did the North. The Pallavas introduced a system of Hinduism in the South which was common to the North and the South. That system became truly the imperial and universal social system for the whole of B h ā r a t a v a r s h a, i.e. I n d i a - with-Further India. A unity which Aśoka had failed to achieve was accomplished in the India of the Vākāṭakas and the Pallavas. And that unity of civilization is a legacy enjoyed to-day. They turned K ā ñ c h ī the old capital of the Cholas, which had been outside the limit of Aryan sanctity, into another sacred K ā ś ī, and under them the South became as sacred a Hindu-land as the North. ‘Bhāratavarsha,’ which in the time of Khāravela was probably confined to the North only,¹ was given a new definition to include the land up to Cape Comorin. ‘Āryāvarta’ and ‘Dakshiṇāpatha’ gave way to ‘Bhāratavarsha.’² And the Hindu historian in the Vishṇu Purāṇa composed a national anthem, saying,

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¹ E.I., XX, p. 72, Line 10.

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² Vishṇu Purāṇa, Bk. II, Ch. 3, 1-23.

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Even the Gods congratulate and envy the born-Indian ; ‘the Indian, born in Bhāratavarsha, is blessed’, sing the Devas in heaven. ‘Let us be born in that land.’³

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³ Ibid., 24-26; See above p. 160.

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The point of view becomes Indian from that of Aryan, and the Indian [*Bhāratī santatiḥ*] includes all the children of the soil, Aryan and non-Aryan.¹

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¹ *Ibid.*, verse 17.

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174. The Pallavas who turned the South into a sacred Hindu-land were Brahmins, who, as they proudly say in their inscriptions, raised their position by their austere political deeds and became Kshatriyas.

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The statement is strictly true. Virakūrcha, the founder of the Pallava Dynasty, was invested with the insignia of full sovereignty by his marriage with the Nāga Princess, daughter of the Nāga emperor.² The Nāga emperor at the time, in the latter half of the third century, was the Bhāraśiva Nāga whose dominions extended through Nagpur and Bastar up to the confines of the Andhra country. Virakūrcha [or, °-korcha], an inscription of whose grandson found in Andhradeśa mentioning him as beginning the line gives him the feudatory title of ‘Mahārāja’ and the description of one who though endowed with the highest Brāhmaṇa-hood (*parama-brahmaṇya*) attained the position of a Kshatriya³, was thus a member of the Bhāraśiva empire with the position of a sub-king. In the Andhra country itself there had been no Nāga dynasty before. There were the Ikshvākus⁴ and before the Ikshvākus there were the Sātavāhanas. The Nāgas who installed Virakūrcha Pallava must have enjoyed an imperial position and must have been on the borders of the Andhra kingdom. These conditions are fulfilled only by the imperial Bhārasiva Nāgas.

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² यः फणीन्द्रसुतया सहाप्यौद्राजचिह्नम्खिलं यशोधनः । S.I.I., ii., 508.

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³ परमब्रह्मण्यस्य स्वबाहुबलार्जितसत्त्रोपनिषेधिविधिविदित-सर्व्वमर्यादस्य, E.I., i., 398 [Darśi copperplates]. Here the Mahārāja is called Virakorcha-varman. This is the oldest record mentioning his name.

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⁴ There was a family of the Bṛihat-phalāyanas (E.I., VI, 315) in the Kṛishṇā District who were probably feudatories to the Ikshvākus or to the early Pallavas. We do not find any trace of the family of Jayavarman Bṛihat-phalāyana before or after him. The letters of his copperplates agree with the letters on the plate of Śiva Skanda-varman, the Pallava Yuvarāja (E.I., VI, 84). Does Bṛihat-Phala stand for the Bṛihat-Bāṇa, the well-known Southern family, phala being the arrowhead (*bāṇa*)? The Bṛihat-Bāṇas were feudatories to the Pallavas in the time of Mayūraśarman (E.I., VIII, 32). Probably both *bāṇa* and *phala* were translations of some Tamil word.

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175. We get help and corroboration here from the Buddhist history. In 310 A.D., according to Siamese Buddhist history, Andhradeśa was under Nāga kings, from whom permission was taken to transfer a portion of the tooth relic to Ceylon from Dantapura in Andhradeśa.¹ The place in Andhradeśa is called Majerika, which I think is the name of the branch of the Godavari now called Manjhira.² The ‘Nāga’ king described by the Buddhists must be the Pallava king who was under the Nāga empire and was at the time (c. 300 A.D.) a descendant of the Nāga Emperor, having sprung from the Nāga princess married by Virakūrcha (§ 182 ff.).

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¹ Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India (ed. 1924), p. 612.

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² Ibid., p. 605. Cunningham thinks that the stūpa from which the relic was removed was the same as the Amarāvatī one.

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176. Who were these Pallavas? This question has been sought to be answered by various scholars since the discovery of this dynasty from their copperplates. ‘Pallava’ has remained a mystic, undeciphered figure. It was fashionable to regard every unexplained dynasty as being of foreign origin, and in that vogue the Pallavas became Parthians. But the conscience of the historians was not satisfied and almost instinctively they came to the conclusion that the Pallavas were natives of the country. But they regarded them as Dravidian or connected with the Dravidians of Ceylon. All these theories have ignored written records and materials which leave no room for any controversy. The Pallavas have suffered at the hands of historians a fate similar to that of the Śungas. They have been deprived of their true status which is one of good, pedigreed Brahmins. The Śungas had been declared to be foreigners, until the present writer was instrumental in showing that the Śungas were Vedic Brahmins and the founders of a Brahmin empire, a finding which has now been universally accepted. The key of their origin was found in the orthodox literature of the country. We should employ the same method again with regard to the Pallava ethnology. The code to decipher the Pallava mystery is locked in the Purāṇas, in their Vindhyaka history. The code is this: A branch of the Imperial Vindhyakas, i.e.

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the Imperial Vākāṭakas, became kings of Andhradeśa which had become connected with the Vākāṭaka province of Mekalā. This Mekalā I have identified as a province of ‘Sapta-Kosalā,’ below the Maikal range of our maps, i.e. the British district of Raipur and the Indian State of Bastar. These Vākāṭaka sub-kings of Andhradeśa ruled in seven successions from the time of Vindhyaśakti the founder of the Vākāṭaka power, down to the time of Samudra Gupta’s conquest. We have thus one index here for identification. Another index is the caste and gotra of the Vākāṭakas. We know from their inscriptions that the Vākāṭakas were Brahmins and that they were Bhāradvājas. The third fact is that they belonged to Āryāvarta and their language was Northern, not Dravidian. The fourth fact that we have consists in the date of Vindhyaśakti and his dynasty. And the fifth fact that we have is that when Vindhyaśakti arose, the Nāga emperors were ruling over Āryāvarta and the Central Provinces, and that Vindhyaśakti himself came to the forefront on account of them and out of them, the Kilakilā Nāgas—tataḥ Kilakilebhyaś cha Vindhyaśaktir bhaviṣyati. The sovereigns and emperors of Vindhyaśakti were the Kilakilā Nāgas, i.e. the Bhāraśiva Nāgas (§ 11 ff.). Now let us see where we can find all these five marks of identification of these Andhra sub-kings of the Vindhyakas, in the Pallavas. The kings of the Andhra country up to c. 250 A.D.

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were certainly the Ikṣvākus on the east-coast, contemporary with whom were the Chuṭu Sātavāhanas on the west-coast. The time of Vindhyaśakti is from 248 to 288 [or, 244] A.D. In this period, we find the Pallavas superseding the Ikṣvākus and the Chuṭus. The Pallavas according to their own deeds and documents, executed on copperplates about 300 A.D. or a little earlier,¹ describe themselves as Bhāradvājas, the identity of whose gotra is made further clear by the later documents of the dynasty. They were the Bhāradvājas of the family of Droṇāchārya and Aśvatthāman. They, therefore, belonged to the same Brahmin gotra to which Vindhyaśakti belonged. Their language in their copperplates is Prakrit or Sanskrit, not Dravidian. The variety of Prakrit they use in their earliest copperplates is northern. Very soon in the third generation, immediately on the close of the Nāga empire, they begin to employ Sanskrit, the style of which is Vākāṭaka. Like the imperial Vākāṭakas they are Śaiva by religion. As we have already seen, it is stated in the documents of the Pallava dynasty that the founder of the Pallava dynasty was made king by the Nāga emperor on the former's marriage with a Nāga princess. The Purāṇas give to these descendants of Vindhyaśakti, the kings of Andhradeśa up to the time of Samudra Gupta, seven successions, and the early Pallavas up to Samudra Gupta's time do number seven successions [§ 183]. Thus all the marks of identification respond to the Vākāṭaka indices.

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Their gotra is identical, their language and religion, their age and date, their Nāga allegiance all agree entirely. And so does the number of successions of the Pallavas up to the time of Samudra Gupta with the number of successions given by the Purāṇas to the Andhra branch of the Vindhyaka dynasty. No room for doubt is thus left on the question of identification. The Pallavas were a branch of the Vākāṭakas. And when their inscriptions say that they were in the line of Droṇa and Aśvatthāman, they record a truthful tradition. The Vākāṭakas did belong to the line of Droṇa and Aśvatthāman, being Bhāradvājas. And I have personally found the tradition still alive at Bāgāt, the original home of the Vākāṭakas in Bundelkhand, that their home (Bāgāt) is still called the village of Droṇāchārya, the military professor of the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas [§§ 56-57]. The northern culture of the Pallavas in art

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¹ Cf. Krishna Śāstri, ‘the Prākṛit charters of Siva-Skandavarman and Vijaya-Skandavarman do actually belong at least to the beginning of

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the 4th century A.D., if not earlier' [E.I., XV, 248]—a view with which I fully agree. The writing which is of the Nāga type was introduced in the South for the first time by the Pallavas; the tops of letters are headed (lined), though not box-headed.

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and religion, for which they stand out as the greatest dynasty of the South, thus stands explained. The Pallavas were neither foreigners nor Dravidians, but good Brahmin aristocrats from the North, military by profession.

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177. We have in the example of the ‘G a ṅ g a D y n a s t y’ a purely assumed dynastic title, unconnected with the gotra or personal name of the founder. Similarly the word Pallava, which means a ‘branch,’ probably stands for the ‘J u n i o r D y n a s t y,’ like the ‘C h u t u s’ of the imperial Sātavāhanas, whom they superseded. As the C h u t u s were to the imperial family of the S ā t a v ā h a n a s, so the P a l l a v a s were to the I m p e r i a l B h ā r a d v ā j a V ā k ā ṭ a k a s:—‘branch’ i.e. the Lesser Dynasty. The first Pallava king bears the name Virakūrcha; kūrcha means a bundle of twigs—almost the same as Pallava. The real name seems to be Vīra which is repeated in the name of his grandson Viravarman (§ 181 ff.). The name of the other son of Vindhyaśakti was P r a v i r a, who was probably the younger, as he had a very long reign. As Pravira married his son to the daughter of the Nāga E m p e r o r and thereby succeeded to the Nāga empire, similarly Vīra had married a Nāga princess and was made king of Andhradeśa [which his father as a Nāga general had probably conquered]. The Pallava inscription correctly relates that the ancestors of Virakūrcha used to assist the Nāga emperors in their government, that is, they were Nāga officers; we have already seen that Vindhyaśakti was at first only an officer, probably the chief general of the Nāga emperors (§ 59). The use of the word Bhāra in the inscription in connection with the burden of government of the Nāga king may or may not have an echo of the Bhāra of the ‘Bhāra Śiva Nāga.’¹

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¹ भू-भार-खेदालस-पन्नगेन्द्र-साम्राज्य-निख्यात-भुजार्गलानाम् ।—Velurpalaiyam Plates, verse 4, S.I.I., II, 507-508. [Cf. App. A, below on the place-name Bhū-bhāra.]

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178. The Pallavas naturally adopted the imperial Vākāṭaka heraldic marks, which is evident from their seal [S.I.I., ii, 521] and the subsequent history of Imperial Insignia in Southern India (§§ 61 and ns.; § 86). The Pallavas have on their seal G a ṅ g ā and Y a m u n ā, which are known Vākāṭaka insignia. They have probably also Makara-Standard or ‘Makara-Toraṇa’ in common.¹ They have the Bull of Śiva in common, facing left (proper right).²

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¹ See the open mouth of the animal in the Pallava seal in E.I., VII, 144 and on Rudrasena's coin (§§ 61, 86).

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² See the seal in E.I., VIII, 144, and the bull on the Vākāṭaka coins reproduced in Part II of this book. The bull is made recumbent in the later Pallava documents.

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179. The Pallavas and the Vākāṭakas never come in conflict. The Early Pallavas never strike their own coin. Śiva S k a n d a-v a r m a n, the second king, introduced a new regal title. He called himself ‘Dharma-Mahārājādhirāja,’ i.e. ‘the rightful overlord of Mahārājas [Emperor]’ or ‘the Emperor by virtue of Dharma’. This title had not been used by the Sātavāhanas. It was an importation from the North, it was a Hindu edition or rather a Hindu counter-title of the Kushan ‘Daivaputra Shāhānushāhi’. Instead of being a Daivaputra, the Pallava king places his claim on his adherence to the orthodox law and the orthodox civilization, which was quite in conformity with the law of Hindu constitution. He was substituting Dharma for the divine Daivaputra. It should be noted that the Ikṣvākus never used this title and they were simply Rājans or ‘kings’ like their late masters the Sātavāhanas, following the old Hindu style.³ Thus we have a full effect of the northern imperial idea in the Pallava beginnings. When the Āryāvarta B r a n c h of V i n d h y a ś a k t i attains the imperial position just after or in the life-time of Śiva Skandavarman (I), the same idea of D h a r m a S o v e r e i g n t y on a bigger scale is found. The All-India S A M R Ā Ṭ had a Dharma *raison d’être* as fully set out in the Mahā-Bhārata.

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³ In one of the Ikṣvāku inscriptions (E.I., XX, 23) all the three kings are called ‘mahārāja’. This is one of the last records. Probably at that time the independent position had been lost. They had been originally mahārājas. The first Ikṣvāku to adopt the title of king (rājan) was Vira Purushadatta. His son was only Mahārāja.

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