Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s3.t1: A. The Pāleyagāra System
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s3.t1
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A. The Pāleyagāra System
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The spirit of co-operation which the people showed while dealing with village questions was extended to the larger spheres of political life.⁶ This may account for the firmness with which they planted the Pāleyagāra system which, if judged by the havoc it caused in later days, would seem to have no redeeming features in it. Nevertheless it was one of those measures which satisfied an urgent need of the times, and which in the palmy days of the Nāyaka rule, proved to be a boon to the Government in maintaining peace and order in the south.
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⁶ For an account of the Pāleyagāras, see Taylor, O.H. MSS., II, pp. 161-3.
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The origin of the Pāleyagāra system and of the seventy-two bastions of Madura, is thus given in the accounts of the various Pāḷeyagāras. Thus we have the following about "Bodi nayak palliyacārer, or chieftain of the district of Siva rāma kulam. Their ancestors were rulers in the district of Gooty. In consequence of the Mahomedan conquest, the people every where emigrated to the south, and the heads of this tribe among the rest. They came to the north side of the Vaigai river, where ten families subject to the Malayāḷa rulers resided. At the time, the Pāṇḍiya king had taken refuge in the Malayāḷa country, and he gave the strangers leave to settle there. The date of Saka nayaka head of the tribe, is placed in Sal. Sac 1258 (A.D. 1336); and by consequence, the Mahomedan irruption was the first that occurred".¹ In the times of "Sila bodi nayak", "a champion, among the Mahomedans challenged the people of the Rayer's dominion to find a champion to meet them. Bodi nayak, hearing of the circumstance, went to the north; fought with and killed the Mahomedan; and in consequence, received great honours and distinctions. He ruled twenty-two years. His son, Bangāru guḷḷu nayak ruled twenty-six years, and was one among the chiefs, summoned to take charge of the bastions of the Madura fort, the 60th being allotted to him".²
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¹ Taylor, Cat. Rais, III, p. 375.
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² Ibid., p. 376.
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The following is narrated about the origin of the Pāḷeyagāra of "Emakalapuram in the Dindigul district of the Coimbatore province":
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"During the rule of the Rayer in Cal. Yug. 4520, Sal. Sac 1341, 'my ancestors' were of the Camavar tribe. Camulaca nayaker lived at Devanampaṭanam near Cuddalore, being headman of the district. At that time the Rayer had an unmanageable horse, which no one could govern, till the aforesaid Camulaca, going to the capital, taught the keepers how to control the animal; and he himself, mounting the horse rode out with it for three days together in the most unfrequented places, and brought it back before the Rayer, on the fourth day, perfectly quiet. The Rayer was so well pleased that he gave the headman the title of the horse, adding other titles, and distinctive banners; and relinquished the district at Cuddalore to him in free-gift, therewith dismissing him. At the time when Visvanātha naicker was sent to take possession of the Pandiya kingdom, the aforesaid Camulaca was ordered to accompany him, and afford aid. The household god of Camulaca became an image at Emakalapuram, where he settled. He received orders from Visvanātha naicker to furnish a quota of troops, towards the charge and defence of the fort of Madura. Some disagreement occurring between Kulasēchara and Visvanātha; the latter ordered the Emakalapuram chief to go against the former, which he did; and, after much fighting, the former laid an ambush, so that Camulaca naicker was shot, as he was advancing with his people. Visvanātha had the funeral rites performed. His son was Anantapa naicker; who, in consideration of the manner of his father's death, received additional distinctions, and some villages in free grant from Visvanātha naicker. At the time when the seventy-two chiefs had each a bastion of the Madura fort confined to him, this chief was appointed to the seventh bastion".¹
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¹ Taylor, Cat. Rais, III, p. 355.
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The genealogy of the Pāleyagāras of Naḍavacuruchi contains some interesting details. The ancestors of this line "emigrated from Kiluvai Kundiyan fort, fought with the Kallars, or thievish tribe of the south, and acquired a principality, given to them by the Pandiya king. During a hunting excursion, a tiger suddenly sprang from its covert, and attacked the party, of which the Pandiya king was one. The Poligar of this line killed the tiger, and was rewarded by the distinguishing emblem of a tiger-skin under his saddle; a token of distinction, and honour. After a succession of nine following chiefs, the Pandiyan king demanded a wife from their tribe: the reply to which demand was, that their tribe could not inter-marry with the descendants of the lunar race (Chandravamsa). The Pandiyan king came to war against their tribe; in consequence of which they abandoned the estate, and came to Sundara Pandiya puram, where they had much trouble with the Kallars, whom they exterminated; and were confirmed in possession of the said town by the rayer from the north. Seven generations resided there. Thence they retired before an invading force; which would seem to have been Mahomedan. They fought with Kallars in the Virasingha nādu and overcame them". The account continues to narrate their achievements, especially those related to the subjugation of the Kallars and Kurumbars, and to the rescuing of "a large number of cattle which had been seized by the ruler at Kayalattūr, who was at war with the Madura prince. For this service they received distinction, and additional lands. After three generations the mention occurs of the Kartākal or northern viceroys; and of the appointment of chiefs to guard the bastions of the fort, which took place under the first of those viceroys: the chief of this district was one of those so appointed".¹
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¹ Taylor, Cat. Rais, III, pp. 385-6. See also Nelson, Mad. Country, P. III, p. 98. Wilks says that the title Pāḷeyagāra properly belonged to the Telugu governors of Vijayanagara. Sketches, I, p. 20 (1810); I, p. 13 (1869). Rangachari I.A., XLIII, p. 114; Satyanatha, Nayaks, p. 58; Heras, Aravidu, pp. 132-3; The Trichinopoly Gazetteer I, pp. 210, 237; The Manual of Tinnevelly, I. pp. 61, 71-85, 271-73; and The Salem Gazetteer, I, P. 1, pp. 68-9 may also be read in the connection.
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In the confused accounts of conflict with the Muham-madans and the Kallars, we have some details about the causes which may have brought about the Pāḷeyagāra system. Behind these stories of courage and pluck there may be a few germs of truth about the necessity which the rulers of Vijayanagara and their southern viceroys felt of enlisting the services of adventurous leaders of tribes in maintaining law and order in the land. That the viceroys of the south recognized the arduous work which their own followers did in reducing the unruly elements to a state of stable government is evident from the following passage in the *History of the Carnataca Governors*: "As many of the chiefs of the Dotiyah class, who had heretofore followed the fortunes of Nagama-Naicker, had taken an active share of service in all these last mentioned battles, so now Visvanatha-Naicker and Ariya-natha-Muthaliar rewarded their services by dividing the whole of the countries acquired into seventy-two palliyams (districts or counties), specifying the towns or villages belonging to each; and these districts they held on tenure of military service, in the manner following: that is—the king built or attached seventy-two bastions to the fort of Madura; and in case of attack or siege, these seventy-two palliya-carers were each one to have charge of a particular bastion with a connected portion of the wall, and to defend the same with his retainers against all assaults. This arrangement was accordingly followed. This was in the year of Salivahana- Sagartam 1354, or year of the Cali-yugam 4533'.¹ Towards the end of Vijayanagara history we are told that the Pāleyagāra of Erumaikaṭṭi (in A.D. 1611) was able to command 3,000 infantry, 200 horse, and 50 elephants.²
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¹ Taylor, O.H. MSS. II, p. 21. For a detailed account of the number and names of the Pāleyagāras, see Satyanatha, Nayaks, pp. 58, 59, 240. App. A.; Rangachari, I.A., XLIII, pp. 116-17.
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² Satyanatha, ibid., p. 59.
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This extraordinary power given to the Pāleyagāras was at once the merit and the defect of the system. So long as their activities were directed towards the urgent needs of clearing the forests and of subjugating the unruly tribes who infested them, the Pāleyagāras were an indispensable factor in the scheme of the Vijayanagara monarchs and their viceroys for reclaiming a large tract of the fertile regions of the south. This was essential for the colonization of the south by the new-comers from the north.³ The Pāleyagāra system was also directed towards another end. It was a safeguard against the activities of foreigners, who, especially on the Fishery Coast, were becoming powerful to an alarming degree.⁴
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³ Satyanatha, ibid., p. 60; Rangachari, ibid., p. 113; Heras, Aravidu, pp. 137-8.
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⁴ Satyanatha, ibid.
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But the system carried in itself the germs of the dismemberment of the Empire. It is true that, as we have remarked elsewhere, the feudatories in the north of the Vijayanagara Empire, were also given vast civil and military powers, and that the banner of revolt was first raised by the northern provinces and by the ruler of Tuluva. But it must be remembered that even after the great disaster of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi, there was a marked difference in the position which the northern feudatories and the southern Pāleyagāras occupied in Vijayanagara history. The latter were placed under a viceroy but the former were directly controlled by the king, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.⁵ Although the chieftains in the northern and north-western parts of the Empire were as eager as the southern Pāleyagāras to encroach on the authority of the Central Government, yet there were among them, as, for example, in the states of Keḷadi and Mysore, one or two instances of principalities which could successfully rejuvenate Hindu life in the western and central parts of the decadent Vijayanagara Empire. But the annals of the numerous Pāḷeyagāras of the south afford us no such example of sustained effort to preserve the traditions of the great Hindu rulers of mediaeval times. On the contrary, like the history of most of the Indian rulers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the story of the Pāḷeyagāras is mainly an account of petty rivalries and interminable warfare of those who had bartered the honour and safety of the land for their own selfish ends.¹
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⁵ Rice, My. Gas., I, p. 234, (1st ed.); p. 356 (Rev. ed.).
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¹ The Rev. Heras in his estimate of the Pāḷeyagāra system writes: 'This was by far the most important political event of the time, in spite of the fact that it fomented ambitions in these petty chiefs and weakened the royal authority of Madura, of which they were too independent from the very beginning. Had they been more systematically attached to, and dependent on, the central power, Madura might have been saved from many of the troubles caused by the Palaiyakarans" Aravidu p. 134. The Pāḷeyagāra system is to be judged from the point of view of the Vijayanagara Empire, and not from that of the viceroyalty of Madura. It was not 'the royal authority of Madura' to which the Pāḷeyagāras ought to have been subjected but the royal authority of the Vijayanagara king which they must have been made to obey. So far as the history of the 72 bastions is concerned, there is nothing to suggest that the Pāḷeyagāras were not systematically attached to or dependent on the viceroy of Madura. The vital defect of the system lay in the fact that the Vijayanagara Emperor had nothing to do with it. B.A.S.