History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s2.16
History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c17.s2.16
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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