- Origin of Pallava
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Pallavas 
Pallava kingdom c.645 CE during Narasimhavarman IOfficial languages
TamilCapital Kanchipuram Government Monarchy Preceding state Satavahana, Kalabhras Succeeding states Cholas, Chalukya The Pallava were a Tamil dynasty who ruled the Northern Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with their capital at Kanchipuram for a period of about six hundred years from the early 4th century CE until the end of the 9th century.Kambar mentions Pallava King in Silaiezhupathu. Silaiezhubadhu tells that pallava is sambu kothram . Silaiezhupathu was written in front of the Pallava King.
Contents
Theories
Tamil ancestry
The word Pallava means "branch or twig" in Sanskrit and "a province of" or "a shared" (in general) and "raining (bliss), famous, bards, rock-men (hill tribe), embossed, peacock feather" (variant meanings) in archaic Tamil. The word is rendered as Tondaiyar in Tamil language meaning "in continuum". The Pallava kings at several places are called Thondaimans or Thondaiyarkon. One view is that in archaic Tamil Pallavar denotes "donors of (Jain) cave assemblies/niches-palli".
Silver coin of king Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. 160 CE).
Obv: Bust of king. Prakrit legend in the Brahmi script: "Siri Satakanisa Rano ... Vasithiputasa": "King Vasishtiputra Sri Satakarni"
Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol left. Crescented six-arch Chaithya hill right. River below. Dravidian legend in the Tamil Brahmi script: "Arasanaku Vasitti makanaku Tiru Satakani-Ko" - which means "The ruler, Vasitti's son, Highness Satakani" - -Ko being the royal name suffixThe territory of the Pallavas was known as Tundaka Visaya or Tundaka Rashtra in contemporary North Indian texts. The Chola king Karikala Chola annexed the region now referred to as Tondaimandalam after overthrowing the Kurumbar/Kuruba sovereignty[1] and gave it to his valiant son Aa-thondaimaan[2]. The region henceforth came to be known after the king Aa-thondaimaan.
Thus the Pallavas were an offshoot of the Cholas[2]. Thus the dynasty is named Pallava derived from the Sanskrit word Pallavam means bud, branch refers to the separate branch of dynasty founded by the Karikala Chola's son Aa-thondaimaan Ilanthiraiyan in early 2nd century[2].
The presence of Sangam Cholas in the present South Telugu country is indicated from the mentioning of Vengadanadu(Tholkappiyam) and Kaariyaaru (Purananooru). The fact that Tamil was the popular language or at least lingua franca in the 2nd century Satavahana kingdom is indicated in the legends of Vashishtiputra's coins. Traditionally Kanchi is considered to be the homeland of Pallavas, as though they asserted themselves on the collapse of the Satavahana power, they never had or moved the capital into the old Satavahana states, and might have annexed a part of Chola territory by 250 C.E. And the epithet Tondai remained and their territory also came to be called Thondaimandalam literally meaning the region of Thondaimaan in Tamil. R. Sathainathaier seems to connect the Pallavas with ancient Pulindas, who according him, were identical to the Kurumbas/Kurubas of Tondamandalam.
Sri Lankan origin
Tamil literature relates the story of Chola king Killivalavan who moved his capital to Uraiyar after the destruction of the Chola capital of Puhar. Mudaliyar C. Rasanayagam of Colombo claims that Killi Valavan had a liaison with the daughter of Naga king Valaivanam of Manipallavanam (in Jaffna peninsula) in Ceylon. From this union was born a child who was named Tondaiman Ilantirayan whom his father, Killi Valavan, made the ruler of a territory which was named Tondamandalam with capital at Kanchi. It is pointed out that name Pallava derives from the last syllable of Manipallavanam ....the land of prince’s mother.[3]
Aryan origin
The origins of the Pallava still remain a subject of speculation. Dr V. D. Mahajan postulated that the Pallavas were "Vishwakarma's"
External links
References
- ^ Religion and Public Culture: encounters and identities in modern South Indi by John Jeya Paul, Keith Edward Yandell,http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0700711015&id=x3GuKnZTGG4C&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&ots=0mGugDgcw8&dq=adondai+kondaikatti&sig=rvjX3UZKGetOlVMyoGQS0IC4ac0
- ^ a b c History of Tirupati: The Tiruvengadam Temple By T. K. T. Viraraghavacharya, http://books.google.com/books?vid=0EAC1QqCYpse1n8eEo&id=VBoaAAAAMAAJ&q=adondai&dq=adondai&pgis=1
- ^ See: Ancient India, 2003, pp 704-705, Dr V. D. Mahajan
Categories:- History of India
- Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups
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