Kanchipuram was an important trading centre in the Pallava period.
The merchants had to obtain license to market their goods.
Barter system generally prevailed but later the Pallavas issued gold and silver coins.
Merchants had their own organizations such as Manigramam.
In foreign trade, spices, cotton textiles, precious stones and medicinal plants were exported to Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, China and Burma (Myanmar).
Mamallapuram was an important seaport.
Traders founded guilds and called themselves as sudesi, nanadesi, ainurruvar and others.
Their main guild functioned at Aihole.
Foreign merchants were known as Nanadesi.
It had a separate flag with the figure of bull at the centre, and they enjoyed the right of issuing virasasanas.
The jurisdiction of this guild stretched over entire south-east Asia.
The chief of this guild is registered in the inscriptions as pattanswamy, pattnakilar, and dandanayaka.
Its members were known as ayyavole-parameswariyar.
Maritime Trade
Unlike in the Ganges plain, where large areas were available for cultivation, the regions controlled by the Pallavas and the Chalukyas commanded a limited income from land.
Mercantile activity had not developed sufficiently to make a substantial contribution to the economy.
The Pallavas had maritime trade with south-east Asia, where by now there were three major kingdoms:
Kambuja (Cambodia),
Champa (Annam), and
Srivijaya (the southern Malaya peninsula and Sumatra).
On the west coast, the initiative in the trade with the West was gradually passing into the hands of the foreign traders settled along the coast, mainly Arabs.
Indian traders were becoming suppliers of goods rather than carriers of goods to foreign countries, and communication with the west became indirect, via Arabs, and limited to trade alone.
Society
Brahmins as learned scholars in literature, astronomy, law and others functioned as the royal counsellors.
Not only were they in the teaching profession, they were also involved in agriculture, trade and war.
They were exempted from paying taxes and capital punishment.
The next important social group which ruled the state was called sat-kshatryas (quality kshatriyas).
Not all the kshatryas were of warring groups; some of them were involved in trading as well.
They also enjoyed the right to read the Vedas, a privilege denied to lower varnas.
The trading group maintained warriors for protection and founded trade guilds.
The people who were at the bottom of the society worked in agriculture, animal husbandry, and handicraft works.
People engaged in scavenging, fishing, dry-cleaning and leather works were positioned outside the varna system.
Most scholars agree that Aryanisation or the northern influence on the south picked up pace during the Pallava period.
This is evident from the royal grants issued by the kings.
The caste structure had firmly established.
Sanskrit came to be held in high esteem.
Kanchipuram continued to be a great seat of learning.
The followers of Vedic religion were devoted to the worship of Siva.
Mahendravarman was the first, during the middle of his reign, to adopt the worship of Siva.
But he was intolerant of Jainism and destroyed some Jain monasteries.
Buddhism and Jainism lost their appeal.
However, Hiuen-Tsang is reported to have seen at Kanchi one hundred Buddhist monasteries and 10,000 priests belonging to the Mahayana school.
Many of the great Nayanmars and Alwars, Saiva and Vaishanava poet-saints lived during his time.
Growing influence of Brahmanism
Perhaps the most obvious sign of the influence of Aryan culture in the south was the pre-eminent position given to Brahmins.
They gained materially through large gifts of land. Aryanisation is also evident in the evolution of educational institutions in the Pallava kingdom.
In the early part of this period education was controlled by Jains and Buddhists, but gradually the Brahmins superseded them.
The Jains who had brought with them their religious literature in Sanskrit and Prakrit, began to use Tamil.
Jainism was extremely popular, but the competition of Hinduism in the succeeding centuries greatly reduced the number of its adherents.
In addition, Mahendravarman I lost interest in Jainism and took up the cause of Saivism, thus depriving the Jains of valuable royal patronage.
The Jains had developed a few educational centres near Madurai and Kanchi, and religious centres such as the one at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka.
But a vast majority of the Jaina monks tended to isolate themselves in small caves, in hills and forests.
Monasteries and Mutts
Monasteries continued to be the nucleus of the Buddhist educational system and were located in the region of Kanchi, and the valleys of the Krishna and the Godavari rivers.
Buddhist centres were concerned with the study of Buddhism, particularly as this was a period of intense conflict between orthodox and heterodox sects.
But Buddhism was fighting a losing battle.
Royal patronage, which the Buddhists lacked, gave an edge to the protagonists of Vedic religions.
Apart from the university at Kanchi, which acquired a fame equal to that the Nalanda, there were a number of other Sanskrit colleges.
Sanskrit was the recognized medium, and was also the official language at the court, which led to its adoption in literary circles.
In the eighth century the mathas (mutts) became popular.
This was a combination of a rest house, a feeding-centre, and an education centre, which indirectly brought publicity to the particular sect with which it was associated.
Growing Popularity of Sanskrit
Mahendravarman I composed Mathavilasa Prahasanam in Sanskrit.
Two extraordinary works in Sanskrit set the standard for Sanskrit literature in the south:
Bharavi’s Kiratarjuniya and
Dandin’s Dashakumaracharita.
Dandin of Kanchipuram, author of the great treatise on rhetoric Kavyadarsa, seems to have stayed in Pallava court for some time.
Rock-cut Temples
Mahendravarman I is credited with the introduction of rock-cut temples in the Pallava territory.
Mahendravarman claims in his Mandagappattu inscription that his shrine to Brahma, Isvara and Vishnu was made without using traditional materials such as brick, timber, metal and mortar.
Mahendravarman’s rock-cut temples are usually the mandapa type with a pillared hall or the mandapa in front and a small shrine at the rear or sides.
