Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s1.7

v1.c12.s1.7

Although it is not possible to dwell in detail upon the internal administration of the nāyakas, yet it is permissible, we believe, to ascribe to a certain extent the confusion which prevailed in southern India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the effect of the Nāyaka rule.² It is not that the Nāyaka system of administration was without its merits. The final reduction of the south, with its numerous forests-chiefs and members of ancient families, was solely the work of remarkable rulers whom the Central Government deputed to the south. Men like Viśvanātha and Ariyanātha were needed to bring order out of chaos in the south.³ The magnitude of their task was indeed great. Viśvanātha Nāyaka was confronted with almost insurmountable difficulties: there were his own dependents, who, on coming to a more fertile region, naturally craved for rewards; there were the old Tamil hereditary chieftains and rulers jealous of the newcomers; and there were the discontented adherents of the Pāṇḍyas.⁴ Some of these descendants of the Pāṇḍyas soon joined together against Viśvanātha;⁵ and the political prospect grew worse when Travancore refused to pay tribute to the Imperial Treasury. Then came the complications that followed the avowal of a policy of protection which the Portuguese, with the desire of gaining control over the Pearl Fishery Coast, extended to the Paravars.¹ The despatch of an imperial army under Rāma Rāya Viṭhṭhala seemed to suggest that the Central Government had realized that Viśvanātha had failed to cope with the imminent dangers around him.