Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s6.7

v1.c10.s6.7

This ancient custom of levying taxes both in money and kind, as the reader must have gathered from the account of the revenue settlement given in the previous pages, continued under the Vijayanagara government. An order of the minister (*pradhāni*) Sōmaiya Daṇṇāyaka in the reign of Kampaṇa Oḍeyar II, according to an inscription found in the Bhūmīśvarasvāmi temple in the Gingeē tāluka, South Arcot district, dated only in the cyclic year Kilaka, was issued remitting the taxes payable in money by certain classes of people inhabiting the *tirumaḍaivilāgam* of the temple of Tiruppūmīśvaramuḍaiyar.² In A.D. 1301 *dēvadānam*, *tiruviḍaiyāṭṭam*, *maḍapuram* and *pallichchandam* were paid in gifts.³ From a sale deed of the revenue of the village of Veppambaṭṭu and of Siṟu-Kaḍambūr, as recorded in an inscription dated Saka 1328, expired (A.D. 1416-7), we gather that it was assessed both in money and corn.⁴ We have seen from the inscription of Tiruvaigāvūr, relating to the revenue settlement effected in A.D. 1429-30, that the people had to pay taxes in kind as well as in gold.⁵ 'Abdur Razzāq informs us that it was the practice of the country to pay in money. "The usage of the country is that, at a stated period, everyone throughout the whole empire, carries to the mint the revenue (*zar*) which is due from him, and whoever has money due to him from the Exchequer receives an order upon the mint".⁶ A damaged record dated A.D. 1488 deals with a grant of a village with its dry and wet lands and its income in money and grain (*sakala-suvarṇadāya-sakala-davasādāya*).⁷ The trustees of the Bṛhadāmbikā temple at Devakkāpuram, North Arcot district, in the Saka year 1452 (A.D. 1530-31) granted to a certain Ambalaṭṭāḍi the right of cultivating (*ulavu-kāṇi*) the *dēvadāna* village of Kāmākshirāvuttaṅgal and fixed fifteen *paṇam* and twenty *kalam* of paddy to be paid to the temple every year.⁸