156 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [June, 1873. how much longer we do not know. Being the grandson of his predecessor, this king must have come to the throne at an early age, and hence there is nothing improbable in the duration as¬ signed to his reign. The thing to be noticed is the absence of the minute details regarding the date of the donation, which are usually found in inscriptions. The name of the cycle year is not given, nor the day of the month or week, nor any astronomical conjunction. But notwithstanding the absence of these particu¬ lars the date of the grant accords perfectly with what we know of the history of this king. We are next introduced to a province named Nirggunda. This I conceive to be the name that occurs in connection with one of the wit¬ nesses to the Merkara plates, but which, from his being there described as a servant, I conjectured might mean nirganta, the village waterman.* The position of Nirggunda I do not know. Wherever it may have been, the tributary king of the region had married the grand-daughter of the Pallavadhiraja. I am not aware that anything definite has been published as to the chronology and succession of the P a 11 a v a kings. The following are a few scattered notices of the dynasty. Sir Walter Elliot says t: “ Previous to the arrival of the first Chalukya in the Dakhan the Pallavas were the dominant race. In the reign of Trilochana Pallava an in¬ vading army, headed byJaya Sinha, sur- named Vijayaditya, of the Chalukya- k u 1 a, crossed the Nerbudda but failed to obtain a permanent footing. Jaya Sinha seems to have lost his life in the attempt, for his queen, then pregnant, is described as flying after his death and taking refuge with a Brahman called Vishnu Somayaji, in whose house she gave birth to a son named R u j a Sinha, who subsequently assumed the titles of R a n a Raya and Vishnu Vardhana. On attaining to man’s estate he renewed the contest with the Pallavas, in which he was finally successful, cementing his power by a marriage with a princess of that race, and transmitting the kingdom thus founded to his posterity.” The rivalry, however, was not thus ended. For I have a Chalukya inscription in which the first Vikrama ditya is stated to have become “ the possessor ofKanchipuraf by the conquest of Pal lava Pati, whose insults threatened destruction to the dynasty resembling in purity the rays of the moon,” i.e. the C.h a 1 u k y a s, who were of the soma v a m 8 a or lunar line. The next king, Vinayaditya Satyas- ray a, who began to reign A.D. 680, is described as having “ destroyed the power of Trai- rajya Pallavain the same manner as the heavenly general § of Bdlendra Sekhara || smote down the excessively-grown might of the Daityas.” Previously to this, however, we find from the present inscription that Pallaven- dra Narapati had suffered defeat from Raja Sri Vallabhakhya of the Kongu line. I have also met with two stone inscriptions of the Pallavas, but so worn from age as to be almost illegible. On one of them the name N o- lambadhi Raja has been doubtfully made out. The character in which the inscription now translated is engraved bears much resemblance to that found in the Buddhist stfipa of A m a r a- vati with the addition of the characteristic- letters of the Hala Kannada or Ancient Kana¬ rese, namely, the vowels, the four forms of l and two forms of r. These are denoted in the trans¬ literation thus :— r = ^ = -d;ri = ?r=cJ);r=e5;l==^ = v; I = ar = ; 1 = ea; and l = co5. II. TRANSLITERATION. [I.] Svasti jitambhagavatagata ghanagaganabhenaPadmanabhena. SrtmajJahnaveyakulamalavyo- muvabhasana bhaskarah sva khadgayka prahara khandita mahaeila stambha labdha bala parakra- modaranfi-
- Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 366, note %.
+ * Numismatic Gleanings/ Madras Jour, of Lit. and Sc.t N. S.t vol. IY. pp. 78, 79, quoted Jour. R. As.. SocNew Series, vol. I. p. 251. . X Conjeveram, S. of Madras. § Kum&rasw&mi. || Siva,
