Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s7.15

v1.c10.s7.15

It is not possible to find out in what respects the functions of a House or Palace Treasurer differed from those of a Tōṣēkhāna-adhikāri. We can only conjecture that the latter may have been in charge of the treasury of the kingdom, and the former, of the personal treasury of the monarch. However that may be, Achyuta Rāya seems to have been careful even as regards the financial stability of the villages. For the villages seem to have had a village treasury. We are told in an inscription, in which unfortunately the name of the village is defaced, that in A.D. 1535 Achyuta Rāya ordered that the immemorial customs dues of that village were to be paid and that they might be made use of for the treasury chest (bhaṇḍārada-bokkasa).¹ References to the officers of the State treasury are also found in later years. Rāma Rāya Nāyaka, having inquired into the disorders of the agrahāra of Sadāśivapura, in A.D. 1577, made new grants, and appointed as manager Kṛṣṇappayya, son of Nārāyaṇappa of the treasury of gold.² Hariyappa of the palace, son of Nārāyaṇappa of the gold treasury, in A.D. 1583, has left some evidence of his benevolence.³ We are informed that in the same year the treasurer was Koṇḍapparasa, and that his agent Timma Rāja granted certain specified lands to Māgaḍi Keñchamalla Siddaya Gauḍa.⁴