Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c11.s2.t3.6

v1.c11.s2.t3.6

The new State had to struggle strenuously before it could reach the zenith which it attained under the great Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya. The Karṇāṭaka proper shorn of its northern portions, the Tuḷu country, Nellore and Cuddapha, as related above, may be said to have been the earliest limits of the Vijayanagara Empire. With the conquest of Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam and Madura some of the ancient provinces of Tamil-nāḍu passed into the hands of the new rulers. The extent of the kingdom under Harihara II is shown by the inscriptions found at Hampe, or Vijayanagara, in the Bellary district, at Bēlūr, Chitaldroog, Harihara and Hassan in the Mysore State, at Makaravaḷḷi in the Hānugal tālūka of the Dharwar district, at Conjeeveram and at Tiruppāsūr near Tiruvaḷḷur in the Chingleput district, and at Srīraṅgam in the Trichinopoly district.¹ About the limits of the Empire under Dēva Rāya II, we may be permitted to repeat the evidence of 'Abdur Razzāq cited in one of the earlier chapters. The Persian ambassador says that the kingdom "extended from the borders of Saradip (Ceylon) to those of Kulbarga (Gulbarga), and from Bengal to Malibār, a space of more than 1,000 *parasangs*."² The same traveller informs us that "inland his cities and provinces extend over a journey of three months".³ The campaigns of Kṛiṣhṇa Dēva Rāya the Great brought all southern India under the sway of Vijayanagara.⁴ Paes relates the following about the extent of the Empire under that monarch. "You must know that this kingdom of Narsymga has three hundred *graos* of coast, each *grao* being a league, along the hill-range (*serra*) of which I have spoken, until you arrive at Ballagate and Charamāodel, (i.e., Chōḷamaṇḍala), which belong to this kingdom; and in breadth it is one hundred and sixty-four *graos*; each large *grao* measures two of our leagues, so that it has six hundred leagues of coast, and across it three hundred and forty-eight leagues . . . across from Batacalla (Bhaṭkal) to the kingdom of Orya (Orissa).