Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s5.t2.22

v1.c10.s5.t2.22

³ These mediators were also common to the Tamil land in the earlier ages. See *Ep. Report* for 1916, p. 116. As regards the official status of the *nāḍ* people and the *madhyastas*, the following may be suggested: Inscriptional evidence does not positively define the status of these functionaries. The idea of comparing the *nāḍ* people with the Tamil *nāṭṭār* is not altogether improbable. But in most of the Vijayanagara inscriptions found in the Karṇāṭaka, the term *nāḍ* people is used for all the people of the *nāḍ*. Thus in A.D. 1377 all the *gauḍas*, and subjects (*ā-Aragaḍa . . . gauḍa-prajegaḷu tammoḷu sarvēkamatyavāgi*) of the Araga province gave the village of Huṭṭada-haḷḷi to Virūpākṣa Oḍeyar, the Viceroy, as a gift. E.C., VIII, Tl. 125, p. 187. In A.D. 1379 the *nāḍ* people of the two Mandu-*nāḍ* Thirty (Mandu-nāḍu-Mūvattarolagaḷa gauḍu-prajegaḷu) (many of whom are named) granted lands in Niṭṭūr to Mallappa of the Treasury. E.C., VIII, Tl. 114, p. 185. According to the inscription already cited elsewhere, all the *nāḍ* people of the Araga Eighteen Kaṭhpaṇa (Aragaḍa-vēṇṭeyada hadineṇṭu