The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c30.114

v1.c30.114

These great personal qualities made him an exceptionally great monarch. All the Hindu sources of his time or posterior to his death unanimously praise him as one of the greatest sovereigns of the Vijaynagara Empire, ‘a great and pious sovereign’, as recorded in the Prapannamrtam ⁶. According to the Kuniyur plates of Venkata III ‘the wise glorious Venkatapatidevaraya ruled the earth, illumining the ten regions by (his) fame’ ⁷. The Utsur grant of Ranga III calls him ‘brilliant in polity’ ⁸. Another grant of Venkata III styles Venkata a King ‘of brilliant policy, his fame illumining the ten cardinal points’ ⁹. A grant of Krishnappa Nayaka of Madura records that Venkata ruled ‘in wisdom’ ¹⁰, and the Vellangudi plates of Venkata himself state that ‘he ruled the earth with justice’, and that, ‘as Rama governed the world, he ruled the earth’ ¹¹. The Dalavay Agraharam plates (of the same Venkata) describe him as a good ruler both in peace and in war: “He was a wishing tree to the poor”, they say, “he was like the central gem of the necklace (which is) the city of Aravidu...; he was the best of (the) kings, the foremost of the kings of the race of Atri,...a munificent giver like Kubera....was broad-armed like Kubera, . . a Ramabhadra in battle”¹. The Mangalampad grant describes the liberality of this monarch even more poetically. It runs: “Behaving like a grand-father to friends and foes, intent on giving refuge to enemies who bowed to him, his splendour was eulogized by all men”². Venkata’s generosity was one of his outstanding features; as Fr. Coutinho remarks, ‘he was very liberal’³.