Pallava Dynasty - Expansions Into Tamil Regions

Expansions Into Tamil Regions

The Velurpalaiyam Plates state this of the Pallava, Simhavishnu:

He quickly seized the country of the Cholas embellished by the daughter of Kavira (i.e. the river Kaveri), whose ornaments are the forests of paddy (fields), and where (are found) brilliant groves of areca (palms).

The Chola country did not originally belong to the Pallavas and it was the Pallava King, Simhavishnu, who captured the Chola country. This military operation was opposed by many southern kings which can be discerned from the Kasakudi Plates which state that Simhavishnu vanquished the following rulers:

The Malaya, Kalabhra, Malava, Chola and Pandya (kings), the Simhala (king) who was proud of the strength of his arms, and the Keralas.

The Pallavas captured Kanchi from the Cholas as recorded in the Velurpalaiyam Plates, around the reign of the fifth king of the Pallava line Kumaravishnu I. Thereafter Kanchi figures in inscriptions as the capital of the Pallavas. The Cholas drove the Pallavas away from Kanchi in the mid-4th century CE, in the reign of Vishugopa, the tenth king of the Pallava line. The Pallavas re-captured Kanchi in the mid-6th century, possibly in the reign of Simhavishnu, the fourteenth king of the Pallava line, whom the Kasakudi plates state as "the lion of the earth". Thereafter the Pallavas held on to Kanchi till the 9th century CE, till the reign of their last king, Vijaya-Nripatungavarman.