Note 11 — P (Continued)

The terms Sambhu and Sāmbhava Rāyan are connected with the Pallis. The story goes that Agni was the original ancestor of all kings. His son was Sambhu, whose descendants called themselves Sambhukula, or those of the Sambhu family. Some inscriptions11 of the time of the Chōla kings Kulōttunga III and Rāja Rāja III record Sambukula Perumāl Sāmbuvarāyan and Alagiya Pallavan Ēdirili Sōla Sāmbuvarāyan as titles of local chiefs. A well-known verse of Irattayar in praise of Conjeeveram Ēkāmranāthaswāmi refers to the Pallava king as being of the Sambu race. The later descendants of the Pallavas apparently took Sāmbuvarāyar and its allied forms as their titles, as the Pallis in Tanjore and South Arcot still do. At Conjeeveram there lives the family of the Mahānāttār of the Vanniyans, which calls itself “of the family of Vīra Sambu.”