Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s2.t2.47

v1.c12.s2.t2.47

In addition to these village servants,—the gauḍa, the sēnabōva, the jyōtisha, the purōhita, the bēgāṛa, and the turncock, we have to mention the guardian of the village peace,—the taḷavāra or the kāpu or the kāval.³ The village police existed in early times. In Śaka 1161 (A.D. 1239-40), during the reign of Rājarāja Dēva, Virāsani-Ammaiyappan Aragiya Śōṛan alias Edirili-Śōṛa Sambuvarāyan gave to the Viṣṇu temple at Poygai the village of Puttūr together with its revenue and taxes, in which was included the small tax for the village police.⁴ Then, again, the same person made a gift of taxes in which there was one for the overseer of the village police, in Śaka 1165 (A.D. 1243-4).⁵ Some of the duties of the kāpus or village police in the Telugu country are thus enumerated in an inscription dated about A.D. 1284-5. "The kāpus should cultivate the paddy fields given to the temple (of Chirumana Mallikārjuna) for its share, and give each year 155 puṭṭis of paddy, and a half share in the second crop paddy; they should raise gingelly, flax, kāru jonna, and green gram on dry lands, and pay at the rate of three-quarters mōḍa on female cloths. The kāpus should conduct the charity perpetually. They should not allow the lands of the deity to lie waste. They should not sell the calves of the deity". The same stone inscription contains the following: "If the dancing-girls themselves (of the same temple) lease out the ands given to them, the kāpus who rule the village will treat them as 'sarvamānya'."¹