Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s2.t2.13

v1.c12.s2.t2.13

The villagers sometimes enacted that lands could be sold only to one who was a resident of the village. An undated inscription of the times of Dēva Rāya II informs us that the villagers of Māṅgāḍu, in the Chingleput district, agreed among themselves "that any owner of land (in the village of Māṅgāḍu) (desirous of) selling (his land), must sell it to a land-owner within that village and not to any outsider, nor could he give (even) as dowry (strīdhana) (lands in the village) to an outsider".⁶ Finally, we may observe that village assemblies were empowered to confiscate lands belonging to guilty (village) officials. Such lands were, however,—as is evident from the custom prevailing in the Pāṇḍya country,—granted as gifts to local temples. The village assembly of Tirupperunduṛai, in the Tanjore district, in Śaka 1308 (A.D. 1386-7), gave as tirunāmaṭṭu-kāṇi to the local temple of Śōḻa-Pāṇḍya-Viṇṇagar Emberumāṇār land which it had confiscated from a certain Aṇḍān-Pillai of Tirupputtūr on account of some fault (kurai) committed by him.¹