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Vishnugopa of Kanchi

King of Kanchi named in the Allahabad pillar inscription of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta, among the southern kings whom he captured and released, about the middle of the 4th century. Most scholars take him for a Pallava. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil argued that the meeting took place near the Krishna, where Vishnugopa led an alliance of eastern kings, not at Kanchi.

Vishnugopa is known from a single line in a foreign record, the Allahabad pillar inscription of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta.1 It names “Vishnugopa of Kanchi” among the kings of the south whom the emperor captured and then set free.1 No grant of his own has been found.2 This site places him among the Pallavas because almost all the sources do so, but the inscription itself does not call him a Pallava.2

Was he a Pallava?

H. Krishna Sastri thought it might be presumed that he was a Pallava.1 His reasons were that the name was popular with the later Pallava kings, and that no other dynasty was then known at Kanchi.1

R. Gopalan reasoned in the same way.2 The name was a typical Pallava name, found in no other royal family.2 The Allahabad inscription names its kings by their capitals, not by their families.2

D. C. Sircar noted that this “Vishnugopa, ruler of Kanchi” had been taken by everyone to be a Pallava.3 Gopalan recorded the view of another writer, that the early Pallavas were known in Tamil literature as Tiraiyar, and that Vishnugopa was therefore a Tiraiyan, but he rejected it.4

Where did he meet Samudragupta?

  • At Kanchi. Gopalan held that there was no evidence against the older view that Samudragupta advanced against Kanchipuram itself.5 Sewell’s chronology of 1932 has Samudragupta defeat Vishnugopa, capture him and his city, and restore him to his throne.6
  • Near the Krishna. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil argued in 1917 that Samudragupta never entered the Tamil country.78 In his account, when the emperor crossed the Godavari, several kings joined to stop him.78 They were the kings near the Kolleru lake, the king of Vengi, Vishnugopa, “who reigned on the right bank of the Krishna”, and Ugrasena of Palakka.78 In 1920 he described the campaign as an attempt on the coast of Orissa that “completely failed”.910 An alliance of eastern kings headed by Vishnugopa drove it back.910

Sewell made the “Hastivarman of Vengi” of the same inscription a Pallava viceroy under Vishnugopa.611 Gopalan thought him “presumably identical” with the Salankayana king Hastivarman. See Hastivarman.12

Date and place in the family

Gopalan dated Vishnugopa about 340–350, from the date of Samudragupta.13 He rejected a proposal to date the Gupta era from 200–201, which would have moved Vishnugopa back to the middle of the 3rd century.1314 Sircar placed Samudragupta’s reign about 330–375, and Vishnugopa about the middle of the 4th century.15

His relation to the other Pallava kings is unknown. Several later Pallavas bore the same name.1617 A pillar inscription at Vayalur lists a Vishnugopa three times among the early kings.1617 Krishna Sastri and Jouveau-Dubreuil each suggested that the earliest of these was Samudragupta’s enemy.1617

Jouveau-Dubreuil’s family table of 1920 dates him 325–350.1819 It makes the Skandavarman of 350–375 his son and successor.1819 Gopalan wondered whether he might be the same person as the Kumaravishnu of the first Omgodu grant.20

Footnotes

  1. H. Krishna Sastri, “Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants”, Epigraphia Indica XV (1919–20), p. 247 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 46 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (1939), p. 151 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  4. R. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (1928), pp. 22–23 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 45 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  6. Robert Sewell and S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 17 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  7. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 14 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 15 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan (1920), p. 61 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  10. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 44 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  11. Sewell and Aiyangar, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 375, table of Pallava kings (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  12. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 47 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  13. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (1928), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  14. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 60 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  15. Sircar, Successors of the Satavahanas (1939), p. 177 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  16. Krishna Sastri, “Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants” (1920), p. 248 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 23 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Jouveau-Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan (1920), p. 68 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  19. Jouveau-Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan (1920), p. 70, genealogical table (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  20. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas (1928), p. 61 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Dynasties

Pallavas

c. 250–900 CE

Dynasty of Kanchi (Kanchipuram) whose kings held the Telugu country south of the Krishna for much of the 4th to 7th centuries CE. Their earliest charters, in Prakrit, were sent from Kanchi to an officer at Dhanyakataka near Amaravati. A later line issued Sanskrit grants of villages in the Guntur and Nellore country from camps such as Palakkada and Dasanapura. The Chalukyas took Vengi and the Guntur country early in the 7th century. But Pallava kings still granted villages in Nellore until about 700, and their vassals held parts of Chittoor and Rayalaseema until the Chola conquest about 900.

References

Sources (6)
  1. F. W. Thomas (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XV (1919–20) (opens in a new tab), Government of India, Calcutta, 1925, pp. 247–248. H. Krishna Sastri, Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants. [Public domain]
  2. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil (tr. V. S. Swaminadha Dikshitar), The Pallavas (opens in a new tab), The author, Pondicherry, 1917, pp. 14–15, 23–26. [Public domain]
  3. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan (opens in a new tab), The author, Pondicherry (translated by V. S. Swaminadha Dikshitar), 1920, pp. 61, 68, 70. [Public domain]
  4. R. Gopalan, History of the Pallavas of Kanchi (opens in a new tab), University of Madras, 1928, pp. 32–33, 44–47, 60–61. [Public domain]
  5. Robert Sewell (ed. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar), The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (Collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History (opens in a new tab), University of Madras, 1932, pp. 17, 375. Paraphrased. [Public domain in India]
  6. D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (opens in a new tab), University of Calcutta, 1939, pp. 151, 176–177, 181. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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