The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c9.185

v1.c9.185

13. The generosity of the King did not forget the Brahmanic precept of giving alms to the Brahmins. In 1545 he made a grant to some Brahmins ⁸; the village of Govinda-Vamapuram was given by him to a Brahmin ⁹; two years later two other villages were also given to several Brahmins ¹⁰. It seems he had a special predilection for learned Brahmins. A grant of the village of Kanuma to several learned Brahmins was recorded in 1548 ¹¹; the Bevinahalli village was given to several Brahmins ‘who are well versed in the Vedas’¹; from 1544 to 1546 three villages were granted in perpetuity ‘with gift of gold and libation of water as an agrahara’ to Chinna Koneti Tiruvengalanathayyagaru, a Brahmin of Ongole, son of Srimad Tallapaka Tirumalayangaru, called in two inscriptions ‘the establisher of the path of the Vedas’², and in a third one ‘the establisher of the school of the Vedanta’³. All these grants were most probably made by Sadasiva himself because all, excepting one, the date of which is quite doubtful, belong to the first period of his reign. But none is positively assigned to the other periods during the time of his imprisonment. From this time we know only of a grant made in 1554 by Rama Raya himself to some Brahmins⁴.