Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s2.t2.57

v1.c12.s2.t2.57

The existence of the village watchmen in later ages is proved by a record dated A.D. 1584 which speaks of the watchmen of the village of Pushpitodupura, also called Baichapura, in the Sivanasamudra country.⁴ In some parts of the Tamil land the fees for the kāpus were paid out of the village shares. Thus in Saka 1447 (A.D. 1525-6) Chennama Nāyanigāru settled that under a tank at Kaṇḍlakuṇṭa, three parts of the land were set apart for the Velamas, gods and Brahmans, and two for the kāpus who guarded the country.⁵ It may also be noted that in the Tamil country, as elsewhere, perhaps, there were two kinds of village police who received such fees—the ūr-kāval and the pāḍi-kāval,⁶ whose functions, however, cannot be differentiated at the present stage of our investigations.