History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s2.16.3

c17.s2.16.3

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.