Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c11.s2.t3.1

v1.c11.s2.t3.1

In the year of its foundation it appeared as if the new state of Vijayanagara was to be split on the shoals of divided sovereignty; but in reality, the position occupied by Bukka (I), Harihara (I), Kampaṇa (I), and Mārappa over the eastern-central, western-southern, Nellore-Cuddapah, and Shimoga districts, respectively,³ were rather an indication of the co-operative spirit which prompted the enterprising brothers than signs of conflicting elements in the formation of the new administration. Vijayanagara was a unit composed of different provinces from the very commencement of its career. Everyone of these divisions was under a governor, who was vested with great administrative powers, which made it appear as if the different provinces were practically autonomous. But these units were nevertheless linked up with the capital in a manner which, when one realizes the presence of a great number of disintegrating forces both in and outside the Central Government, interests one as much by the devotion with which the distant provinces submitted to the dictates of the capital as by the freedom with which the great city allowed them to run their own course of quasi-independent existence. Although even in the days of the sons of Saṅgama the general limits of the Empire were more or less fixed, yet the precarious position of their kingdom did not permit them to prefix the title of Mahārājādhirāja which both as an indication of the final stability of the Empire and as a mark of the growing importance of the new dynasty, was assumed first by Harihara II.¹ There was one arrangement, however, which the five illustrious brothers transmitted to their successors, at least for some years to come, and that was in connection with the status that was to be given to persons of royal rank. In the times of Harihara Oḍeyar and Bukka Rāya I, some of the divisions of their principality were given over to the charge of members of the royal family, while "the others were, apparently, looked after and governed by the rulers themselves".² We shall presently see that there was nothing new in such a procedure. Till the advent of Harihara II, the rulers were content to style themselves by modest titles, one of which, as remarked in an earlier connection, suggested the expansion of the Empire to the seas in the words "Master of the Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern Oceans".³