Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/439

 THE PALLAVA CONFEDERACY 381 dental discovery of a copper-plate grant in 1840 re- minded the world that such a dynasty had existed. Sixty years of patient archaeological research have elicited so many facts that it is now possible to write an outline of Pallava history, with some breaks, from the second century A. D. to the Chola conquest in 996, and for the last few centuries of that long period to write it almost continuously. The origin of the Pallava clan or tribe is obscure. The name appears to be identical with Pahlava, the appellation of a foreign clan or tribe frequently men- tioned in inscriptions and Sanskrit literature, and ulti- mately with Parthiva, or Parthian. This apparently sound etymology naturally suggests the theory that the Pallavas, who became a ruling race in the south, must have come originally from the coun- tries beyond the northwestern frontier of India, and gradually worked their way down to Malabar and the Coromandel coast. This theory is supported by the ascertained fact that Pahlavas formed a distinct and noticeable element in the population of Western India early in the second century, when they were classed by native writers with the Sakas and Yavanas as objects of hostility to native kings. Vilivayakura II, the Andhra king (113 to 138 A. D.), prided himself on his prowess in expelling the Sakas, Yavanas, and Pahlavas from his dominions on the west- ern coast; and it is reasonable to believe that some of the defeated clans retired into the interior toward the east and south. The Sakas retained the government of