Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/445

 GRANTS BY THE PALLAVA CROWN 385 gupta, who claims to have defeated eleven kings of the south. Among these rajas three seem to have been Pallavas, namely, Vishnugopa of Kanchi, Ugra- sena of Palakka (=Palakkada), and Hasti-varman of Vengi. The last-named prince may be reasonably identified with King Attivarma, who issued an undated grant in the Prakrit tongue, which was found in the Guntur District to the south of the Krishna River. It is pos- sible that the Vishnugopa of Kanchi, conquered by Samudragupta, may be identical with the yuvaraja, or crown prince of the same name, who issued a grant in the Sanskrit language during the reign of his elder brother Simha-varman, but it is more probable that the author of the grant was distinct from and later than the foe of Samudragupta. The grant made by the crown prince is but one of several illustrations of the Pallava custom, in virtue of which the heir apparent was associated in the gov- ernment with his father or elder brother as colleague for years before he obtained the succession in natural course. Much confusion in chronology results when the years of office as crown prince are combined with the regnal years after accession. The Dravidian fashion of dating, which was also used in the early Andhra records, is peculiar, in that the division of the year into months is ignored, and the date is expressed by quoting the serial number of the fortnight in each of the three seasons hot, rainy, and cold; as, for example, an inscription of Sivaskanda-varman is dated on the