Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s2: Section 2. Administration of Justice in Pre-Vijayanagara Days

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s2

Language
English

Section 2. Administration of Justice in Pre-Vijayanagara Days

v1.c13.s2.1

Wise as Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya certainly was, even he had to follow the system of justice as laid down by the ancient rulers of southern India. Custom has always played an important part in the life of the Hindu people; and in matters of justice, ancient usage has been raised to the dignity of law. This explains the injunction found in the *dharma-śāstras* to the effect that rulers were to preserve and respect the ancient custom of the land. Thus in the code of Manu: "The custom handed down in regular succession (since time immemorial) among the (four chief) castes (*varṇa*) and the mixed (races) of that country, is called the conduct of virtuous man".¹ Gautama says: "The laws of countries, castes, and families, which are not opposed to the (sacred) records, (have) also authority".²

v1.c13.s2.2

¹ Manu, II, 18, p. 32.

v1.c13.s2.3

² Gautama, XI, 20, p. 237.

v1.c13.s2.4

Rulers, who, as we remarked while dealing with the local administration of Vijayanagara, were proud to consider themselves as promoters of the *pūrvada-maryāde* of the country, naturally could not have escaped the influence of ancient custom, especially in the south and west, where the Tamil and Karṇāṭaka kings had already established an efficient system of judicial administration. In the Tamil land, for example, even villages had their own well defined courts of justice. In an inscription dated in the third regnal year of king Pārthivēndravarman, the members of the great assembly of Uttaramēlūr-chaturvēdimaṅgalam, enacted the following: "We, *(the members)* of the big Assembly *(also)* ordered that if *(any such taxes are)* shown *(against it)*, each person *(so showing)* shall be liable to pay a fine of twenty-five kalañju of gold in the court of justice (*dharmāsana*)."³

v1.c13.s2.5

³ S.I.I. III, P. III, p. 342, see also pp. 261, 348-9, 357-8.

v1.c13.s2.6

Some idea of the manner in which these early village courts of justice dealt with cases of grave importance can be gathered from records found in the South Arcot district. These epigraphs contain details about cases of murder under provocation and of accidental death, and the method by which culprits were punished. In A.D. 1054, in the third year of Parakēsarivarman Rājēndradēva, a village officer (?) demanded taxes from a woman, who declared that she was not liable to pay taxes. On the officer putting her through an ordeal, she took poison and died. A general assembly consisting of the people from "the four quarters, eighteen districts, and various countries" was summoned, and the man was declared liable for punishment. This, however, took the shape of a fine of thirty-two kāśu which he had to pay for burning a lamp at the temple of Tirut-tāndōṅri-Mahādēva.¹ A Śūdra, in the third year of Rājakēsarivarman alias Tribhuvanachakravartin Kulōttuṅga Chōḷa Dēva, while out a-hunting, missed his aim, and shot a Veḷḷāḷa. The villagers "from the seventy-nine districts" assembled together, and found the Śūdra guilty of homicide (not amounting to murder). He was ordered to pay sixty-four cows to the Tiruttāndōṅri-Aḷuḍaiyār temple for burning two lamps.²

v1.c13.s2.7

¹ 80 of 1906; *Ep. Report* for 1907, p. 77.

v1.c13.s2.8

² 67 of 1906. For similar other cases see *Ep. Report* for 1907-8, pp. 77-8.

v1.c13.s2.9

That in the conduct of criminal cases the villagers sometimes had the sanction of the State is shown by two inscriptons dated in the reign of a certain Rājakēsarivarman alias Tribhuvanachakravartin (Kulōttuṅga Chōḷa Dēva), who probably lived in the twelfth century A.D. One of these relates that a certain individual shot a man belonging to his own village by mistake. Thereupon the governor and people of the district to which the culprit belonged, assembled together and decided that as the man had committed the offence out of mere carelessness, he was to compensate his guilt by burning a lamp in the Tūṇāṇḍār temple at Siyamaṅgalam. Accordingly, he provided the temple with sixteen cows from the milk of which ghee was prepared for burning the lamp.³

v1.c13.s2.10

³ 64 of 1900. For other instances of similar nature, see *Ep. Report* for 1900, pp. 10-11. Mr. Venkayya (ibid.) estimated roughly that the sacrifice which a culprit had thus to undergo was represented by about twenty kalam of paddy, according to the current standard of value.

v1.c13.s2.11

Brahmans too sometimes took part in these deliberative assemblies. A native of Arumbondai, in the thirteenth century A.D., aimed an arrow at another man, mistaking him for an animal. The latter died of the effects of the wound soon after. The Brahmans together with the nāṭṭār (people of the district)¹ decided that, on behalf of the deceased the accused had to provide for a lamp in the temple of Bhūmīśvaram at Marakkāṇam, in the South Arcot district.² Inscriptions of the same age recording similar instances inform us that the accused persons were sometimes made to provide temples with forty-eight sheep.³

v1.c13.s2.12

¹ The nāṭṭār may have been also village functionaries in the Tamil land, although it is equally probable that, like the people of the nāḍ in the Karṇāṭaka, they were merely citizens. See supra, Chapter IV, The Revenue Administration.

v1.c13.s2.13

² Ep. Report for 1919, p. 99.

v1.c13.s2.14

³ Ibid. For further remarks on this subject, read Mr. A. S. Ramanatha Aiyyar's article entitled Homicide and its Punishment in Mediaeval Times, Calcutta Review, 1925, XV, Nos. 1-3, pp. 313-21.

v1.c13.s2.15

These precedents of what might appear to be mild punishments, were, however, not always the rule. In the case of those whose activities disturbed public peace, heavier penalties were imposed by the State. This sometimes took the shape of forfeiture of lands. A certain Āliyaṅgaiyan Saṭṭiyanāvaṇ with his armed accomplices killed one Vāmana Bhaṭṭa on the night of the 25th Arpasi, in the eleventh year of Jaṭāvarman Tribhuvanachakravartin Sundara Pāṇḍya Dēva, while the Brahman was returning home from the temple. Saṭṭiyanāvaṇ eluded imprisonment, but the king ordered that the property belonging to the criminal including his village called Karuvērkrichchi, houses, male and female servants etc., was to be confiscated and added as a tirunāmattu-kāṇi to the temple of Nāyanar Sokka-Nārāyaṇa at Tirukkoshṭiyur in the Rāmnāḍ district.⁴ This drastic action of the king had the desired effect of bringing the guilty person to his senses. A representation was made to the State by several individuals on behalf of the accused, Saṭṭiyanāvaṇ Seramlaip Perumāl, on the ground that he was not an accomplice in the murder; and the village assembly of Tirukkoshṭiyur, obviously at the instance of the king, decided to return to the accused all the confiscated property for a consideration of 800 pon.⁵

v1.c13.s2.16

⁴ 301 of 1923.

v1.c13.s2.17

⁵ 303 of 1923.

v1.c13.s2.18

These instances from the south enable us to conjecture that the Tamil people in the ages preceding those of the sons of Saṅgama, had already put into operation the main injunctions of the ancient lawgivers that justice was to be administered in proportion to the seriousness of the offence, and that the culprit was always entitled to appeal, even after having received his sentence for grave crimes. This practice of dealing with criminals prevalent in the Pāṇḍya and Chōḷa lands must have continued under the Vijayanagara rulers, who, as related elsewhere, were always guided by the pūrvada maryāde of the country in most matters connected with their domestic policy.¹

v1.c13.s2.19

¹ For examples of pre-Vijayanagara criminal administration especially in the Karṇāṭaka, refer to the following: My. Arch. Report for 1911-12, p. 44; ibid., for 1926, p. 38; ibid., for 1925, p. 57. For instances of criminal jurisdiction in the Tamil land, see 315 and 352 of 1909 the latter of which is a mixture of superstition and sense. Ep. Report for 1910, p. 95; Rangachari, Top. List., I, Cg. 143, p. 337, dated A.D. 1306.

Linked texts (3)