Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s5.t3.35

v1.c10.s5.t3.35

It has to be admitted that these instances do not invalidate the statement that the incidence of taxation was heavy in some parts of the Empire. There are inscriptions which refer in unmistakable terms to the heavy taxation and the consequent migration of people from their own province to the neighbouring districts because of their inability to pay the taxes. But it may here be noted that we have evidence at the same time of the prompt measures which the State took to redress the grievances of the people, and to make adequate provision for the discontented. The threats which the people sometimes made on such occasions, of calling a sort of general strike or of deserting their homes, were followed by a revenue enquiry by the State, the results of which were generally accepted by the subjects with satisfaction. The earliest mention of dissatisfaction of the people on a large scale is in an inscription dated only in the cyclic year Vibhava, but assignable to the reign of Harihara II. The epigraph relates that the Kaikkōlars residing in that quarter of Olakkūru, South Arcot district, which was directly under the temple jurisdiction, migrated in a body and "without paying to the temple deserted the premises and left it in ruins". In consequence of which "the worship in the temple had to be stopped and the doors closed". Subsequently the Kaikkōlars were pacified and persuaded to return to their homes, and to pay the assessment decided upon by the State.³