Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c11.s2.t4.58

v1.c11.s2.t4.58

These were the problems which the Vijayanagara rulers had to solve since the time when they had assumed the reins of government as the Hindu Suratrāṇas (Sultans) of the south. That they continued to wield undisputed authority for more than two and a half centuries is a fact which is to be attributed, among other things, to the methods which they adopted to combat the above mentioned grave dangers to the Hindu State. These methods may now be enumerated. The first problem with which we have to deal, excluding that which refers to the foreign policy of Vijayanagara, concerns the civil wars and wars of succession. This recurring evil was to a large measure obviated by the two-fold means of appointing princes of the royal blood as viceroys and by a system of joint-rule. In appointing princes as governors over distant provinces, the Vijayanagara rulers unintentionally gave expression to the precept of Śukrāchārya which runs thus: "He (the king) should station them (the heirs and princes) in various quarters by paying them one-fourth of the royal revenues or make them governors of provinces".¹ We cannot, however, determine the revenue that was assigned to the viceroys of Vijayanagara, although we have, as related elsewhere, cited the evidence of Nuniz as to the income of some of the powerful lords of the kingdom.