History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s2.1

c17.s2.1

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 The P a l l a v a s who superseded the I k s h v ā k u s and the C h u ṭ u s, the last remnants of the Sātavāhanas, have a most important position in I n d i a n H i s t o r y. They are the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,