The Chola Kingdom. The Chola kingdom, like the Pandya, is mentioned by the Sanskrit grammarian Katyayana in the 4th century B.C., and was recognized by Asoka as independent. The dynastic history of the Cholas begins about A.D. 860, and is known from then until its decline in the middle of the 13th century. During those four centuries their history is intertwined with that of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and other minor dynasties. In A.D. 640 the Chola country was visited by Hsüan Tsang, but the country at that time was desolate, and the dynasty of small importance. In A.D. 985 Rajaraja the Great came to the throne, and after a reign of twenty-seven years died the paramount ruler of southern India. He conquered and annexed the island of Ceylon, and was succeeded by four equally vigorous members of the dynasty; but after the time of Vikrama (A.D. 1120) the Chola power gradually declined, and was practically extinguished by Malik Kafur. The Pallava Confederacy. The name of the Pallavas appears to be identical with that of the Pahlavas, a foreign tribe, frequently mentioned in inscriptions and Sanskrit literature. It is supposed, therefore, that the Pallavas came from the north, and gradually worked their way down to Malabar and the Coromandel coast. When first heard of in the 2nd century A.D. they are a ruling race. The Pallavas appear, like the Mahrattas in later times, to have imposed tribute on the territorial governments of the country. The first Pallava king about whom anything substantial is known was Siva-skanda-varman (c. A.D. 150), whose capital was Kanchi (Conjeeveram), his power extending into the Telugu country as far as the Kistna river. Two centuries later Samudragupta conquered eleven kings of the south, of whom three were Pallavas. It appears that in the 4th century three Pallava chiefs were established at Kanchi, Vengi and Palakkada, the latter two being subordinate to the first, and that Pallava rule extended from the Godavari on the north to the Southern Vellaru river on the south, and stretched across Mysore from sea to sea. About A.D. 609 Pulikesin II., the Chalukya king, defeated Mahendra-Varman, a Pallava chief, and drove him to take refuge behind the walls of Kanchi. About A.D. 620 a prince named Vishnuvardhana founded the Eastern Chalukya line in the province of Vengi, which was taken from the Pallavas. Hsüan Tsang visited Kanchi, the Pallava capital, in the year A.D. 640; the country was, according to his account, 1000 m. in circumference, and the capital was a large city 5 or 6 m. in circumference. In A.D. 642 the Pallavas defeated in turn Pulikesin II. The conflict became perennial, and when the Rashtrakutas supplanted the Chalukyas in the middle of the 8th century, they took up the old quarrel with the Pallavas. Towards the end of the 10th century the Pallava power, which had lasted for ten centuries, was destroyed by the Chola monarch, Rajaraja the Great. Pallava nobles existed to the end