Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/449

 WARS OF THE PALLAVAS 389 The pilgrim had intended to proceed thence to Cey- lon by sea, a three days' journey, but he learned that it was in a state of disorder, and abandoned the pro- posed visit. While staying at Kanchi he occupied him- self in collecting from his informants the Buddhist legends current in the island, and in recording such particulars as interested him concerning the Indian kingdoms of the extreme south, which he was unable to visit personally. He then turned to the northwest, across Mysore, until he reached the kingdom of Kong- kin-na-pu-lo in the west, and so made his way into the kingdom of the Chalukya sovereign, Pulikesin n, which he calls Maharashtra. In the Pallava realm of Kanchi he found some hun- dreds of Buddhist monasteries, occupied by a large number of monks, estimated at ten thousand, all at- tached, like the majority of the Ceylonese, to the Stha- vira school of the Mahayana, as well as about eighty Brahmanical temples, and numerous adherents of the Jain or Nirgrantha sect, which had gained great vogue in Southern India from very early times. In the king- dom of Kong-kin-na-pu-lo, the exact situation of which is uncertain, there was a similar mixture of religions, and " several hundred temples, in which many sectaries dwell together," were to be seen. The war between the Pallavas and Chalukyas, ini- tiated by Pulikesin n, proved to be of long duration, and in its course fortune favoured sometimes one, and sometimes another combatant. Pulikesin himself ex- perienced the full bitterness of the instability of for-