Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s3.t2: B. The Granting of Constitutions

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c12.s3.t2

Language: English

B. The Granting of Constitutions

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Some measures of a quasi-political nature illustrate better the corporate activities of the people in Vijayanagara. One of these relates to the issuing of constitutions or charters to corporate bodies. We shall discuss this in detail while dealing with the corporate life of the people in social matters. For the present we may note that by the first quarter of the eighth century A.D., the people of the Karṇāṭaka had already shown that unanimity in social questions was essential in their dealings with the State.²

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² *Infra*, Volume II, Chapter VIII, Corporate Life in Social Matters.

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In purely political matters the Pāṇḍyas had set a precedent in the south. The chiefs (araiyar) of Iraṇḍumalai-nāḍu, according to an inscription dated in the twelfth regnal year of an unidentified Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya, gave assurance to the headmen of Kunnāṇḍār-kōyil that when they took up arms and fought with one another, they would desist from destroying the villages under their protection (kāval), and that they would cause no injury to the resident or itinerant cultivators. If, however, any person was so injured, they would pay a fine of 100 paṇam, and if a village was destroyed, they would pay a fine of 500 paṇam. Even after paying the fine, they agreed to protect the villagers and cultivators, though they might have cutting, piercing and dying in their communal fights.¹

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¹ Ep. Report for 1915, p. 103.

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Sometimes the compacts thus entered into were partly political and partly social. Thus in the disturbed days of Kulōttuṅga III, the assembled people (the nāḍu) of Vallanāḍu declared that thenceforward they would afford protection to the cultivators (kuḍimakkal) residing within the four boundaries of the sacred village of Tiruvaraṅgulam, Pudukkōṭṭai State, and its dēvadāna villages. If in the course of this protection any one of the assembly was found to rob, capture the cows of, or do other mischief to, the cultivators, the assembly agreed to assign two mā of wet land to the local temple by way of fine for the offence committed.² Another interesting record of A.D. 1257 describes the measures the people took "for the prosperity of the country". The revenue expected from the village of Maradūru in Uḻattūr-kūrram failed, as there were no people to cultivate the fields. To make good the loss to the State, the whole nāḍu undertook to bear the burden; and the villages, the cities, and the nāḍu of Kaḍaladaiyādilaṅgaikoṇḍasōḻa-vaḷa-nāḍu agreed among themselves to give away Maradūr to two individuals for providing offerings to the god Tirumāliśvaramuḍaiya-Nāyaṉār at Vēmbaṇū for the prosperity of the country.³

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² Ibid., p. 99.

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³ 357 of 1922. Ep. Report for 1923, p. 111.

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These local bodies assumed greater importance under the rulers of Vijayanagara, who, evidently with the object of knitting closer the ties between themselves and their subjects, made gifts in the presence of the villagers. Thus in the times of Kampana Oḍeyar, who was placed over Mūlbāgal in A.D. 1363, his son Kāmaiya Nāyaka in the presence of the farmers of the kingdom granted lands in Beḷagatta, a subdivision of Toṛevali-nāḍu, as a sarvamānya-koḍage to Eḷahaṅka-nāḍ Allāḷa Jiva's son Taṇṇiyappa.⁴ Petty chiefs gave gifts of taxes with the permission of all the samayas. In Saka 1482 (A.D. 1560-1) during the viceroyalty of the Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Siddarāja Timmarāja at Koṇḍavīṭi-sīma, in the reign of Sadāśiva Rāya, the Dommari chiefs Chimku Reḍḍi, Narasāneṇḍu, and Komāraya Viraya, with the permission of all the samayas made a gift of the Dommari paṇam (a tax levied on the Dommaras) due from the village of Ayanavōlu to the temple of Gōpinātha of that village in the Guntur district.¹

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⁴ E.C., IX, Bn. 81, p. 16.

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¹ 59 of 1917. For other instances of corporate bodies permitting people to levy certain taxes, see 384 of 1914 dated only in the cyclic year Svabhānu, Paṅguni. This epigraph is assigned to the reign of Bukka I. It relates that the people of Kūjai Kuḷattūr, Kiḷaipuduvayal, and Vikrama-Sōḷa-Muttaraiyar permitted the goldsmiths the right of levying certain taxes. We do not know what action the State took in this matter. In A.D. 1307 the Vira Baṇajas, leṭṭi-guṭṭas of Arbala-Seventy and others conferred on Māra Gavuḍa the office of nāḍ-heggaḍe with the right of collecting one paṇam from forty villages, half a paṇam from thirty villages, and tolls, etc. E.C., XI, Hk. 137, p. 138.

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But these instances do not reveal the corporate life of the Vijayanagara people in political matters so much as the record dated Saka 1341 (A.D. 1419-20) of the times of Dēva Rāya II. In that year, when Rāyaṇa Oḍeyar, son of Bhūpati Oḍear,² was ruling over that part of the Empire in which Nāṅgupaṭṭi³ was included, a political compact was signed between Narasiṅgadēvar of Pērāmbūr and his followers on the one hand, and the residents of Kiḷaikurichchi on the other. The inscription continues thus: "Whereas there existed enmity between us from the time of Sēmar-Narasiṅgadēva up to the time of Aḍaikkalamkātta Narasiṅgadeva, hundreds of men on both sides have been killed and imprisoned; in the time of the last-mentioned chief we met together and settled that henceforward we ought not to act contrary to the interests of each other on account of this long existing enmity". This agreement thus made was ratified in the presence of some villagers and district people. And it was also agreed that as long as the sun and moon exist, the enemies of the Pērāmbūr chief would be the enemies of Kiḷaikurichchi and vice-versa, and that no double dealing would be permitted. Those who acted otherwise would sin against the god of Nāṅgupaṭṭi.⁴ The absence of such spirit explains to some extent the anarchy under the later Pāleyagāras.