Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s2.9

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