Jbe Madras University Historical Series III HISTORY OF THE PALLAVAS OF RANCHI I Pa!!,£ 87. S IMHAV I SHNU ANP HIS QUEENS HISTORY OF THE PALLAVAS OF KANCHI BY R. GOP ALAN , III.A., Utl/WTS"" Research Student, 1920-1924, SuIJ-Li61'rlritlfl, Conflhfl(W(l PtIIJIk Li/Jrtu7, Mtulras EDITED FOR THE UNIVERSITY WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY , S. KRISHNASWAMY AIYANGAR, III.A., BONY. ph.D., Professor of Indian Risto"" and ArcNzolo,y, Madras University, HOftOt'ary Corres~(}fIdent of the ArcNzolorieal SIW'IleJI of India "_ ~ ... _.---- PUJ3LISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS 1928 PRINTED IN INDIA BY GEORGE KBNNETH AT THE DIOCESAN PRESS, MADRAS-1928. C13638 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY, HISTORY OF PREVIOUS RE­ SEARCH AND SOURCES OF HISTORY FOR THE PALLAVAS 1 II. THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE PALLA VAS : PRE-PALLAVA HISTORY OF KANCHIPURA 15 III. EARLY P ALLAVAS OF THE PRAKRIT RECORDS. 32 IV. EARLY PALLAVAS OF THE SANSKRIT RECORDS. 41 V. CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL POW E R S. THE SALANKAYANAS, KADAMBAS, ETC. 70 > VI. THE PALLAVA ASCENDENCY-' THE DYNASTY OF SIMHAVISHNU' THE REIGN OF SIMHAVISHNU AND MAHENDRAVARMAN I 79 VII. NARASIMHAVARMAN I (MAHAMALLA) TO RAJA­ SIMHA 97 VIII. BYNASTIC REVOLUTION. HIRANYAVAR.MAN AND HIS SUCCESSOR NANDIVAR1\lAN PALLAVA- MALLA .•• 113 IX. SUCCESSORS OF PALLAV AMALLA 132 X. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OF PALLAVA RULE IN SOUTH INDIA 146 APPENDICES (A) A Chronological Index of Pallava Inscriptions 163 (B) Extract from the Mahavamsa 215 • (C) Extract from the' Avantisundarikathasara ' 221 SPEPAL NOTES BY EDITOR 22~ ERRATA 233 TNPEX 23,5 .. VI CONTENTS I PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS ANP MAPS STATUE OF SIMHAVISHNU WITH' HI~ QUEENS IN THE ADIVARAHA TEMPLE AT MAHABALIPURAM... Frontispiece ST A TUE 01' MAHENDRA V ARMAN 1 WITH HIS QUEENS IN THE SAME TEMPLE 88 MAP OF SOUTH INDIA SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF PALLAVA • ROCK-CUT TEMPLES BEARING INSCRIPTIONS .. At end WORKS CONSULTED Aiyar (K. V. S.): Historical Sketches of Ancient Dekka1'. ArchOJ%gical Reports of Mysore. ArchOJ%gical SurveY of India Annual Reports for 1906-7. Beal: Buddhist Records of the Western World. Bombay Gazetteer. Carr (Capt.): Desc. and Historical Papers on the Seven Pagodas. Coomaraswami (A.K.): A History of India and Indonesian Art. Crole: Chingleput Manual. Epigraphia Indica. E~igraphia Carnataca. Fergusson (J.) and Burgess (J.): Cave Temples in India. '> Fergusson: History of Indian and Eastern Architecture" Fleet : Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts. " : Gupta Inscriptions. Indian Antiquary. Indian Historical Quarterly. Journal of Indian History. Journal of the Mythic Society. Jouveau-Dubreuil (G): Archacologie du Sud de" Inde (1914). " : Ancient History of Deccan (1921). i, : Dravidian Architecture. " : Pallava Antiquities. : Palla vas (1917). " Pallava Painting. " Iranakasabhai (V.) : The Tamils Eightem hundred Years Ago. Krishna Sastri (H.) : Two Statues of Pallava Kings and Five flallava Insc1'l'ptions on a Rock-temPle at Mahabalipuram. 'Mem. Arch. Sur. of India/, No. 26. Vlll WORKS CONSPLTED Krishnaswami Aiyangar (S.) : Anc}ent India (1911). The ,Beginnings of South Indian " " Hlstory (1917). Early Histor'}' of Vaishnavzsm in " " South India. Some Contributions of South " " India to Indian Culture (1924;- Origilt and Earl')' Hist01',}, of the , " " Pallavas of KaiichZ. Manimekhalai in its Historical " " Setting. Longhurst (A. H.) : Pallava Architecture. Parts 1&11. ' Mem. Arch. Sur. of India', Nos. 17 & 33. South Indian Epigraphy-Annual Reports. The Influences of Indian Art (1925). By Strzygowski (J.) a:ld others. The Madras Journal of Literature and Science. The Mahavamsa. Nalayira Prabandam. Rea (A.): Pallava A'rchiteciure. Rice (L.): The Mysore Gazetteer. 2 Vols. " : _Mysore and Coorg h"om Inscriptions. -, Sentamil. Sewell : List of Antiquities i'rz the Madras Presidency. 2 Vols. ) South Indian Inscriptions, Vols. I-V. Srinivasa Aiyangar (P. T.); /fistoryof Pallavas. (Tamil.) Srinivasa Aiyangar (M.): Tamil Studie~ __ ~--~ Taylor (The Rev. William): Oriental Historical MSS. 2 Vols. J- Transactions of the Second and Third All-India Or!~ntal COL.l. _ ference-1924. , / Travancore Sanskrit Series LV. The Mattavilasaprahasdna of Sri Mahendravikramavarman. ' Vaidya (C. V.): A History of Mediaval Hindu India. I ,." ' _/--- INTRODUCTION THE following pages embody the work of Mr. R. Gopalan, M.A., a Research Student at the University, who took up for qis subject the History of the Pallavas of Kanchi. He worked through his full term, and the thesis incorporates his work on the subject. The thesis of just a little over 160 pages constitutes a dessertatio!1 on the Pallavas, which takes us as far as we can proceed on the subject with the material at our disposal. Many of the difficulties in the subject have been brought nearer t to solution by the 'work of a number of scholars, all of which is considered in the work. It does not pretend to have solved all questions connected with the history o{)the Pallavas finally, but it may be stated that Mr. Gop8.lan's work carries us as near to an up-to-date history of the Palla vas as: in the circumstances, is possible. Our purpose in this introduction is to draw attention to the salient features of the thesis and indiC'ate points where more light would be welcome. Such advance as was possible in the study of the subject within the last year or two is also in­ corporated with a view to completing the work of Mr. Gopalan and to invite examination and criticism by those interested in Indian Historical Research. The name Pallavas has been a problem for scholars, and has received attention from time to time from several of them, offering explanations of various kinds; the doubt and the difficulty alike have arisen from the fact that a race of people called' Pahlavas ' were known and are referred to as such along with the Sakas and others, both in the North~west of India auu nearer in the North-western coast of t.he Dakhan. This, in literary texts sometimes takes the alternative form' Pallava " Rnd thus two forms, ' Pahlava ' and' Pal4J.va ' occurring side by side,~give colour to the assumption that the two words are identical. They are indeed identical in form, but do not pre­ t:lude the possibility of another word assumin~ this identical B x INTRODUC'J;ION form. The word l' Pallava' as itl applies to the rulers of Kanchi is undoubtedly and invarial:>ly a later form. We do not meet with the form' Pahlavai' in connection with the Pallavas of Kanchi in any record of :their time. The question therefore would naturally arise whether we need necessarily regard the name' Pallavas' as applied to the rulers of Kanchi as at all equivalent to the other 'Pallavas' either as a word r, or in regard to what the word stands for. The word as applied to 'Pallavas' in the first instance seems to be a translation of the Tamil words 'Tonc;1aiyar' and 'Tonc;1a­ man', and this finds confirmat ion in some of the copper-plate charters, which do bring in tender twigs of some kind in con­ nection with the eponymous name 'Pallava'. This un­ doubtedl), h a later use ot the term, but gives the indication that even at that comparatively late period, the traditional notion was that they were not foreigners, such as the Pahlavas wocld have been. In all the material that has been examined, there is nothing to indicate either the migration of a people or even of a family that migh have ultimately raised itself into a dynasty from the North-west,' so that the assumption of a connection between the one set of people and the other rests upon the mere doubtful ground of a possibility, where'as the translation or adaptation of a Southern word into Sanskrit is very much more than a possibility, as indeed a word like , Dravida ' or ' Dramida ' would c1eatly indicate. The distinc­ tion that Rajasekhara makes b~tween the Southern Pallava and the North-western Pahlava seems in the circumstances to be a crucial indication that in the estimation of scholarly folk of the ninth and tenth centuries, Ithe two were to be regarded as distinct from each other. The foreign ang111>qf_the Pallavas therefore seems to have no ground to supporfJt. The Pallavas seem nevertheless to have been foreign to the locality as far as our evidence takes us at present. Th~ rulers of Kanchi had continued to be known as T~damans --- all through historical times. The;' people of the/ 10califY )were similarly known as Tonc;1aiyar, the region occupied by the people consequently Tonc;1amaI;l<;1alam. These names are all traceabl~ I , . iNTRODUCTION Xl in South Indian literature in the period of prominence of the Pallavas and even before. The name Pallava however is used generally in the charters ever since the Pallavas issued charters, so that historically speaking we wottld be justified if we took Pallava and To.t;lc;1aman t6 be synonymous, and this receives support in the use of the comp()und expression in one of the poems of Tirumangai Al.var, 'the Pallava, who i~ the ruler of the 'ro.t;lc;laiyar' (Pallavatt T01Jifaiyar KlJ1Z). Therefore it is not as if literature did not know the term; much rather literary use regarded the two as synonymous, so that the Pallavas, whoever they were, were T().t;l(iamans, rulers of TO.t;lc;1ama.t;lc;1alam undoubtedly. So far as the Pallavas of the charters are cOilcerned, whether the charters be issued in Prakrit or in Sllnskrit, they are termed, the Pallavas of Kanchi, thotigh severa.l of the charters happened to be issued from localities compara.tively far to the north of Kanchi. Several of the places in which their inscrip­ ti6ns and copper-plate charters have been i:ound, or from which these were issued, are capable of lQ(~ation from tbe Bellary District eastwards up to the River Krishna in the north.