The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c9.131

v1.c9.131

II. One of the first and most important matters the Government took in hand was the maintenance of the Hindu cult. Sadasiva himself and his Minister Rama Raya were the first in encouraging their subjects to foster the national religion, as the lithic records and the copper-plate grants of his reign prove. No doubt, several gifts recorded in these monuments are presented by Sadasiva himself, and not precisely by his Minister, even during the second period of his reign, when he was in prison. "When Sadasiva was seated in the jewelled throne ruling the kingdom of the earth", we read in an inscription of 1557, "he, sending for a copy of the stone sasana at the temple of the god Vitthala, set up in the righteous administration of Aliya Rama Raya, found that according to that sasana, Krishna Deva Maharaya in the year 1519 having granted the customs dues in certain villages, and these not being sufficient te provide for the offerings, which had fallen into abeyance, Sadasiva Raya...made a grant of taxes for the god Bhire."¹