Pallava Dynasty - Origins

Origins

The Three Crowned Kings (Tamil: மூவேந்தர், Mūvēntar), refers to the triumvirate of Chola, Chera and Pandya who dominated politics of the ancient Tamil country, Tamilakam, which was made up of the regions of Chola Nadu, Chera Nadu and Pandya Nadu. The Pallavas found no mention as rulers in Tamil regions during this time. The earliest Tamil literature which throws light on a region associated with the Pallavas is Ahananuru which locates two Tiriyans—the elder Tiriyan in Gudur, Nellore district, with a kingdom extending to Tirupati or Thiruvengadam; and the younger Tiraiyan whose capital was Kanchipuram. The Sangam work, Perumbanarruppatai, traces the line of the younger Tiriyan (aka Ilam Tiriyan) to the Solar dynasty of Ikshvakus, while later Tamil commentators identify him as the illegitimate child of a Chola king and a Naga princess.

PT Srinivasa Iyengar states 'Tondaiyar' means the "tribe whose symbol was the Tondai creeper". Tondai or Coccinia indica is commonly known as Kōvai in Tamil in modern times, but the name Doṇḍe is the ordinary name for the plant in Telugu. Synonyms of Doṇḍe, Tonde or Tondai (Coccinia indica) are Cephalandra indica and Coccinia grandis.

The Proceedings of the First Annual Conference of South Indian History Congress also notes: The word Tondai means a creeper and the term Pallava conveys a similar meaning. Since Pallavas ruled in the territory extending from Bellary to Bezwada, it led to the probability of a theory that the Pallavas were a northern dynasty who having contracted marriages with princesses of the Andhra Dynasty inherited a portion of Southern Andhra Pradesh.

KA Nilakanta Sastri postulated that Pallavas were descendants of a North Indian dynasty of Indian origin who moved down South, adopted local traditions to their own use, and named themselves after the land called Tondai as Tondaiyar. KP Jayaswal also proposed a North Indian origin for them, putting forward the theory that the Pallavas were a branch of the Vakatakas. The association with Vakatakas is corroborated by the fact that the Pallavas adopted imperial Vakataka heraldic marks, as is evident from Pallava insignia. The Pallavas had on their seal, the Ganga and Yamuna, known to be Vakataka insignia.

A Sangam Period classic, Manimekhalai, attributes the origin of the first Pallava King from a liaison between the daughter of a Naga king of Manipallava named Pilli Valai (Pilivalai), with a Chola King Killivalavan, out of which union was born a prince, who was lost in ship wreck and found with a twig (pallava) of Cephallandra indica (Tondai) around his ankle and hence named Tondai-man. Another version states "Pallava" was born from the union of Asvathama with a Naga Princess also supposedly supported in the sixth verse of the Bahur plates which states "From Asvathama was born the king named Pallava".

Though Manimekhalai posits Ilam Tiriyan as a Chola, not a Pallava, historically however, the Velurpalaiyam plates dated to 852 CE, does not mention the Cholas. Instead it credits the Naga liaison episode, and creation of the Pallava line, to a different Pallava king named Virakurcha, while preserving its legitimizing significance:

...from him (Aśvatthāman) in order (came) Pallava, the lord of the whole earth, whose fame was bewildering. Thence, came into existence the race of Pallavas... Vīrakūrcha, of celebrated name, who simultaneously with (the hand of) the daughter of the chief of serpents grasped also the complete insignia of royalty and became famous.

Historically, early relations between Nagas and Pallavas became well established before the myth of Pallava's birth to Ashwatthama took root. A praśasti (literally "praise"), composed in 753 CE on the dynastic eulogy in the Kasakadi (Kasakudi) plates, by the Pallava Trivikrama, traces the Pallava lineage from creation through a series of mythic progenitors, and then praises the dynasty in terms of two similes hinged together by triple use of the word avatara ("descent"), as below:

From descended the powerful, spotless Pallava dynasty, which resembled a partial incarnation of Visnu, as it displayed unbroken courage in conquering the circle of the world...and which resembled the descent of the Ganges as it purified the whole world.

Historian KR Subramanian states the Pallavas were originally not a Tamil power, they were a Telugu power; and Telugu Sources know of a Trilochana Pallava. Trilochana Pallava was killed by a Chalukya King near Mudivemu, Cuddapah District. A Buddhist story describes Kala the Nagaraja, resembling the Pallava Kalabhartar as a king of the region near Krishna district. The Pallava Bogga may be identified with the kingdom of Kala in Andhra which had close and early maritime and cultural relations with Ceylon. Rev Heras also identified King Bappa with Kalabhartar (aka Kalabhartri), "the head jewel of the family", whom Rev Heras proposes as the founder of the dynasty, detecting in the references to Bappa in the Hirahadagalli and Uruvapalli plates, "the flavour of antiquity and veneration which always surround the memory of the founder of a dynasty".

The earliest inscriptions of the Pallavas were found in the districts of Bellary, Guntur and Nellore. After a careful study of Pallava genealogy with all the available material, of no less than 45 inscriptions, Rev. H. Heras put forth the theory that there was an unbroken line of Pallava kings, twenty-four of them in number, who originally ruled at some city of the Telugu country, possibly at Dasanapura, which the Darsi Copper Plates state as their adhisthana. Dasanapura has been identified as Darsi, in Nellore district.