Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s2.t2.53

v1.c12.s2.t2.53

That the village police were paid a fee is clear from another inscription which, although unreliable from the point of view of its chronology, nevertheless contains the names of some other village servants. This inscription, which is dated Saka 1498 of the times of Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya, belongs to that class of suspicious grants which we have examined in an earlier connection.¹ It registers the grant of reḍḍi-mirās, karaṇika-mirās, and the right of collecting the police fee (kāvali-rusum)² in the village of Lōmaḍa to certain persons by the king. The other village officials entitled to receive the mēra (āya-mēragāṇḍra), besides the reḍḍi and karaṇams, were the village priest (purōhita), the artisan, the mansion, the shroff, the talāri (village watchman), the potter, the washerman, the barber, and the village servants (mādiga and veṭṭi-māla, also called bārika).³