History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c15.s2.8

v1.c15.s2.8

A burlesque ( प्रहसन ) has been found at Travancore of which Mahendravarman I is the writer. (It would be interesting to read this drama or rather Prahasana). And Dubreuil has found confirmation of this fact from an inscription on a cave at Māmandūr and which he reads as मत्तविलासादिपदं प्रहसनं, Mattavilāsa being a title of Mahendravarman I. The greatness of this king is described by Dubreuil as follows, "(1) he checked the Chālukya invasion at Pallalur, (2) he gave a new impulse to Śaivism, (3) he glorified poetry and music (it appears he was himself the composer of some svaras), (4) he transferred the taste for rock-cut temples from the banks of the Krishna to those of the Pālār and Kāveri and (5) for administrative purposes he built tanks at Mahendravādi, Māmandūr and probably at Dalavamir. "Thus Mahendravarman I opened a new era whose apotheosis we shall see in the reign of his son Narasinhavarman I" (p. 40). This praise is well merited. The successors of Narasinha too were great builders e. g. Rājasinha alias Narasinhavarman II. They were also great patrons of learning, the son of this Narasinhavarman viz. Parameśvravarman being a great patron of letters. We give in the appendix a grant of this Parmeśvaravarman as much as a sample of the good poetry of the Pallava school as proof of this fact. We shall find also mention of many historical facts in connection with the Pallavas and the Chālukyas, (the French and the English of India) in this inscription. The Pallavas were great patrons of Sanskrit literature and not Dravidian literature which latter it must be stated flourished at the court of the earlier Pāndya kings at Madura. In fact as we have already stated the Pallavas spoke a mid-Indian language.