A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c11.28

c11.28

The Pallavas, in the south-east of the former Sātavāhana empire, made Kāñchipuram their capital. A foreign, Pahlava, origin has often been postulated for them, and this seems to gain some support from the crown, recalling that of the Indo-Greek king Demetrius, in the shape of an elephant's scalp, offered to Nandivarman II on the occasion of his being chosen for the throne; but on a broad view they appear—like the Kadambas and even the Chutus before them—to have been a dynasty of North Indian origin which moved to the South and there adapted local traditions to their own use. Thus Sātakarṇi of the Chutu dynasty, ruler of Banavāsi, worshipped at and endowed the shrine of the god of Malavalli, and the Kadamba king who succeeded him did likewise. A little later the Kadamba line began to declare its devotion to the kadamba tree and to Svāmi Mahāsena (i.e. Subrahmanya) whom Tamil tradition regarded as dwelling in the kadamba tree. In the same manner, Pallava, as the name of the dynasty of Kāñchipuram, must be taken to be the Prākrit-Sanskrit rendering of toṇḍai, the name of the land and its rulers as well as of a creeper.