18S3.] 
30 
G. Bidie —The Pagoda or Par aha coins. 
das, at about A. I). 700.* Mr. Rice has from inscriptions given a tentative 
list of Pallava kings, extending from A. D. 200 to A. D. 1120.f For 
many centuries of the latter years of their sway they were in continual feud 
with the Cliolas, Chalukyas and other Southern powers, and were finally 
conquered and driven from their kingdom by a Chalukya king, A. D. 1138 
to 1150. J Up to the close of the Gth century their capital was in the 
north country called Vengi, but shortly after this they were dispossessed 
there, and established their seat of Government at Conjeveram.§ It is 
probable that about this time they built or encouraged the building of the 
rock-cut temples at the Seven Pagodas, and the fact that these were never 
completed may have been due to some interruption in the shape of strug¬ 
gles with warlike neighbours. That such marvellous structures should have 
been undertaken by a people who had erected the topes at Amravati and 
elsewhere in the north, is just what might have been expected, and the ming¬ 
ling of Buddhist and Brahminical designs in the work is explained by the 
circumstance, that the people had long been familiar with Buddhist archi¬ 
tecture, and had but recently adopted the Brahminical creed. In short the 
latter had not yet had time to create an architectural style of its own. The 
Nonambavadi district was wrested from the Pallavas by the Chalukyas, 
and subsequently passed into the hands of the Hoysala Ballalas. While 
thus owned it continued to be called Nonambavadi, but apparently dropped 
this name on coming under the sway of the Vijayanagar house. || In the 
Bangalore Museum there is a coin which has the name “ Nonambavadi” 
in Hale Kannada characters on the reverse, and Mr. Rice infers, that as 
this title was never applied to the district in later times, “ the coin would be 
as old as the 13th century, and perhaps older.” There is no specimen of this 
most interesting coin in the Madras Museum, but simply an electrotype 
copy, which fails to bring out properly the figure on the obverse. 
Rl. I, Fig. 6. 
Ob. Figure of Harihara:^f 
liev. Three lines in Hale Kannada, the middle one reading ( No)nam - 
bavadi. 
For a long time this was the only copy of this coin known to exist, but 
of late I have heard of another one passing into private hands, and probably 
when next seen it will have been converted into a shirt-stud ! 
* “ Cave Temples of India,” p. 110. 
t “ Mysore Inscriptions,” p. 53. 
X “ Mysore Inscriptions,” p. 58. 
§ Rice’s “ Mysore Inscriptions,” p. 52. 
|| Rice’s “Mysore Gazetteer,” Vol. I, Supplement, p. 3. 
It Union of Vishnu and Siva, Dowson’s “ Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mytholo¬ 
gy,” p. 117; also product of “Siva’s union with Vishnu in the female form,” 
Ziegenbalg’s “ South Indian Gods” by Metzger, p. 6. 
