The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c21.128

v1.c21.128

The principal ceremony performed at Tirupati is at the time of the Durga Puja, about October. Fr. Coutinho, who happened to be there at this time, gives the following account of what he had seen: "At the Feast of Perimals marriage was such concourse of people, that that dayes offering amounted to two hundred thousand Ducats, the King, Queene and Courtiers being present. The Idoll was carried in a great triumphall Chariot drawne by ten thousand men, about midnight, a mile and a half. The Feast of Kowes was solemnized a moneth before, and all the wayes filled with them: for they hold Perimal to have beene the sonne of a Kow" ². Purchas does not give the full narrative of Coutinho, preserved in a letter of Fr. N. Pimenta: "The carr was drawn by ten thousand people," says he, "the King himself being one of the first. It was begun at the close of the day; but at midnight it started to rain and then the king retired; but the rest remained hard at their work till the carr was carried back to the place where it was taken from, two hundred and fifty feet in distance" ³.