Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c11.s2.t3.102

v1.c11.s2.t3.102

But this system of enlisting members from select families was fraught with great danger to the Empire. The Keḷadi family itself proves our assertion. Till the year A.D. 1566 the epigraphs describing the charitable activities of the viceroys are remarkable for their tone of submissiveness to the Central Government. Thus in an inscription dated A.D. 1566, we are told that "when (with titles) Sadāśiva Rāyamahārāya was in Vidyānagari called Hastināvati, ruling the kingdom. . . . And by his order Immaḍi Sadāśiva Rāya Nāyaka was ruling the Āraga kingdom as his māgaṇi. . . .¹ The same is mentioned in an earlier inscription dated A.D. 1560². But in A.D. 1577 his grandson Rāma Rāya Nāyaka, ruling "the Āraga-Guṭṭi Sime, Bārakūru, Maṅgaḷūru, and other kingdoms developed in succession", gave expression to the new spirit which was kindling in the hearts of the Keḷadi governors, in his account of the same māgaṇi which in A.D. 1566 Sadāśiva Rāya Nāyaka is said to have ruled by the order of the Emperor Sadāśiva Rāya. "When (with titles) king Sadāśiva being in Vidyānagari . . . the follower of his orders, by his command—the Yādava-Murāri, Kōṭe-Kōlāhala establisher of the Visuddha-Vaidikādvaita-siddhānta, destroyer of his opponents, devoted a Śiva, Sadāśiva Rāya Nāyaka, born in Keḷadi, celebrated in the world by the place name Keḷadi, having taken possession of the Guṭṭi-sime, the Āraga Eighteen Kampaṇa, Bārakūru, Maṅgaḷūr, with their districts was ruling them . . ."³ The change in the nature of fief expressed in the phrase "having taken possession" of the various principalities and in the string of titles appended to the name Sadāśiva Nāyaka, must have come as an inevitable result of the battle of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi. Rāma Rāya Nayaka was discreet enough to proclaim that he ruled over the Āraga-Guṭṭi and other kingdoms "devolved in succession", under the hand of the Rājādhirāja Rāja-paramēśvara, Vira Pratāpa, Vira Srīraṅga Rāya Dēva, Mahārāya;⁴ but it must have been apparent even to the latter that the province of Keḷadi had outgrown the loyalty of the days of Kṛshṇa Dēva Rāya the Great, and that viceroys like Rāma Rāya Nāyaka, who showed signs of outward submission, had in fact encroached to a very large extent on the authority and name of the Vijayanagara Emperor. Indeed, or the principality of Keḷadi, which thus originated in a fief, lived beyond the days of the great Hindu Empire, the traditions of which it carried on long after the descendants of Srīraṅga Rāya had relapsed into insignificance in their parent city of Anegundi. But the origin and growth of Keḷadi afford to later history one more example of the fundamental defect in the provincial organization of Vijayanagara.