Etymology
Some scholars believe that Kanchipuram might have been derived from the "Kanjiyur" which is mentioned in early Tamil poems. Kanjiyur is a place in the Chola country and its name means "place surrounded by Kanji trees". Kanjiyur is mentioned in several early texts, one among them being the Puṟanāṉūṟu.
However, Dravidologist and professor of history, P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar, in his book History of the Tamils from the Earliest Times to 600AD, claims that the Kanjiyur mentioned in early Tamil poems was not Kanchipuram at all but a different town altogether.
Srinivasa Iyengar claims that Kanchipuram was a Sanskrit word and that the town had no Tamil name. In support of his claim, he states that Kanchipuram is mentioned in the books of the Sanskrit grammarian Patanjali, who lived in the 3rd–2nd century BC. On the contrary, the first references to Kanchipuram in Tamil literature, was in Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai, a eulogy of Ilandiraiyan, which was written as late as the 2nd century AD. Here, though, Kanchi is not mentioned in its Sanskrit form Kanchi, but in its Prakrit form Kacci.
On basis of this evidence, Srinivasa Iyengar concludes that Kanchipuram might have been the southernmost outpost of Sanskrit culture.
Read more about this topic: Kanchipuram In The Pre-Pallava Period
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