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Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s5: Section 5. Remedies against Oppression

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s5

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Section 5. Remedies against Oppression

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Judged by the evidence of some of the foreign travellers, it is clear that there were cases of oppression and maladministration in the Vijayanagara Empire. But since none of the witnesses has given any explanation of the tyranny inflicted by the tributary chieftains, and by the officials of the Government, it is necessary to understand from equally reliable sources, both indigenous and foreign, whether monarchs, feudatories, and officials of Vijayanagara were really given to a continual life of rapine and plunder, and whether the rulers and the people made no attempt to suppress official high-handedness in the country. According to John Nieuhof the Nāyaka of Madura was no better than a voluptuous tyrant, who, in order to secure the fidelity of the governors, resorted to the meanest of devices by imprisoning their wives. In the opinion of Pimenta, the Nāyaka of Madura of the same age, was a thoroughly pious person given to the worship of the gods and Brahmans. Pimenta in A.D. 1599 thus relates: "Hee (Kṛiṣṇappa Nāyaka) daily sits in judgement, a Bramene standing by, which ever and anone whineth out the name of the Idoll Aranganassa; and when one is weary another succeedeth, and continueth that acclamation, though hee sits sixe houres".² Pimenta, who was "Visiter of the Jesuits in India", and whose account contains many descriptions of the pagan credulities of the Hindus, did not write this to justify the character and action of the Nāyaka of Madura. This account of Pimenta and that of Nieuhof enable us to understand that Madura could as well boast of a pious prince as she could be ashamed of a ruthless ruler.

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² Pimenta, Purchas, ibid., X, p. 219; Heras, Aravidu, p. 347.

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There are other means besides these of judging the actions of the kings and chieftains of Vijayanagara. The thaṇadār Dilāvar Oḍeyar, whose brutalities in A.D. 1562 we have just described, was punished by the Government. Death was the penalty for a servant of the State who had illtreated the people. Against this insubordinate thaṇadār, two persons, Pilapa Nāyaka, a resident of a Saṇte-Bennūr-sime, and Gauḍayya of Chikka Gaṅgūr, were sent. On the latter suffering death in a cross-road at the hands of the turbulent thaṇadār, the Muhammadan Nāyaka, "Ayyana-Maluka" ('Ain-ul-Mulk Gīlāni) sent his officer Chimmaṇa Oḍeyar against Dilāvar Oḍeyar. The culprit was caught, "tortured and put to death". The Muhammadan Nāyaka, "Ayyana-Maluka" granted the Dummi-sime as a gift to Pilla Nāyaka (i.e., Pilapa Nāyaka) of Saṇte-Bennūr, and to the children of Gauḍayya, who gave up his life for the sake of the State, he gave Chikka-Gaṅgūr itself as a nettaru-goḍage.¹ This epigraph proves that even the Muhammadan officials of the Hindu Government took prompt action against the cruelties of its officers; and that sufficient provision was made for the children of those who died while in the service of the State.

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¹ E.C. VII, Ci. 69, p. 191, op. cit.

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In one case at least and perhaps in more, when an official of the Government as pārupatyagāra over villages and agrahāras levied customs duties contrary to ancient usage, his successor immediately rectified the matter and declared that the people were entitled not to pay illegal claims. Kāmappa Nāyaka, the pārupatyagāra over the chhatras, temples of the Dalavāyi-agrahāras, and rent-free villages, "levied from all" "customs duties which did not before exist", amounting altogether to 300 gadyāṇa. Peddirāja, son of Appāji of the Kāśyapa-gōtra, on receiving the aforesaid agrahāras and villages as a māgaṇi from Rāma-Bhaṭṭaya, remitted "the whole of these customs dues", together with the house dues of the Peruṅgūr-ayya for Hāru-vahaḷḷi Vogeya-samudra, "in order that merit may accrue to the king (Achyuta Dēva Rāya) and to Rāma Bhaṭṭayya", "having summoned the cultivators and with pouring of water in the presence of the god Srīraṅganātha in the middle of the Kāvēri". Not content with this, Peddirāja caused to be written in the same dāna-patra the following as a guarantee against future official oppression: "For the areca-nut of your rene-free lands neither customs nor collection are due. Besides the local transport tax of three haṇa to the merchants who buy your areca-nut, why pay customs and collection? You have nothing to do with them, and may enjoy (your produce) free of all imposts''.¹

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¹ E.C. III, Sr. 6, pp. 7-8.

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Even in the reign of Achyuta Rāya, therefore, the royal officials could be humane and benevolent. It is not surprising that they should have been so, especially when we remember that that monarch himself had set a good example in his equitable division of the village between the Ekāmbaranātha and Varadarāja temples. The general tendency among the officials of the Government may not have been towards continued oppression at all, since during the earlier period we have ample evidence of their having put an end to distasteful and harmful customs. This may explain why in Saka 1445 (A.D. 1523-4) Vademalluna evidently a (Muhammadan ?) servant of Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya the Great, prohibited the custom of supplying leaves to the circar people, and cloaked his action in a religious garb by arranging for the *abhishēka* of the god . . .with the water of the Chiranadi river.²

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² Rangachari, *Top. List.*, I., Ap. 189, p. 28, op. cit.

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We have recorded the migration of the ryots of a province in A.D. 1446-7, in the reign of Dēva Rāya II, on account of the extraction of forced payments by the ministers of the king. This deplorable state of affairs was put an end to by Dēva Rāya himself. The royal order was sent to the provincial officer Aṇṇappa Oḍeyar, who engraved it in some places and not in others. A petition was consequently sent to Nāgarasa, evidently the viceroy of the province, who extended the order of the king to the whole country.³

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³ 23 of 1905, *Ep. Report* for 1905, p. 50, op. ct. The inscription was found in Kiḷur near Tirukoilūr in the South Arcot district.

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'Abdur Razzāq also suffered from the misrepresentations of the Hormuzians as well as from the petty-mindedness of the officials. He relates to us how his grievances were redressed: "The king had appointed as a temporary substitute of the Brahman Danāik a person named Hambah Nurīr, who considered himself equal to the *Wazir*. He was diminutive in stature, malignant, low-born, vile, savage, and reprobate. All the most odious qualities were united in him, and he had not a single estimable trait in his composition. When the seat of the administration was polluted by that wretch, he stopped my daily allowance without any cause. The Hormuzians having found an opportunity of showing their malice, displayed the devilry which forms the leaven of their disposition; and conformity of vice having ingratiated them with Hambah Nurīr they declared that I was not accredited by His Majesty the Khāhan-i-Sa'id, but that I was a mere merchant, who had carried in my hand the diploma of His Majesty. They spread several other lies in the hearing of the infidels, which produced such an impression upon them, that for some time, in the middle of this unholy country, I was reduced to a state of misery and uncertainty. But while labouring under this anxiety, I met the king several times on the road, who treated me with great consideration, and asked how I was going on. In very truth, he possessed excellent qualities.

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"The Danāik, after ravaging the territory of Kulbarga, and bringing some wretched people away with him as captives, returned to Bijānagar. He reproached Hambah Nurir for having stopped my daily rations, and gave me an assignment for 7,000 fanams on the mint the very day of his arrival".¹

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¹ Elliot, Hist. of India, IV, p. 122.

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In the final reply which Dēva Rāya gave him, we have a sort of public apology for the scanty treatment that was meted out to the ambassador of a great king. 'Abdur Razzāq says: "On the day of my audience of leave, the monarch said to this poor individual, 'They have represented that you are not really the envoy of His Majesty Mīrzā Shāh Rūkh; otherwise we would have paid you greater respect. If you should come again into this country, and I should ascertain that you are really sent on a mission by His Majesty, I will pay you such attention as becomes the dignity of my empire'."²

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² Ibid., p. 123.

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Official oppression was sometimes successfully combated by the united opposition of corporate bodies. These were the organizations of communal groups of the Right Hand and Left Hand Sections which protected their individual interest against public or private aggression. An effaced inscription dated Saka 1351 (A.D. 1429-30) from Vriddhāchalam in the South Arcot district, relates that the members of the Valangai and Iḍangai sects met together in the courtyard of the temple of Tirumudukungamuḍaiya-Nāyinār at that village, and decided that, since the officers of the king (rājanyas) and the owners of jivitas "had oppressed . . . and the kaniyalan and the Brahmans had taken the rāja-karam (i.e., taxes), none of the Valangai and Iḍangai people should give them shelter and that (none of the people of the two sects) born in the country should write accounts for them or to agree to their proposals. If any one proved a traitor to the country (by acting against this settlement), he should be stabbed . . . ."¹

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¹ 92 of 1918; 216 of 1917; Ep. Report for 1918, p. 163. See also Majumdar, Corp. Life, p. 94.

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Another inscription dated only in the cyclic year Saumya, Kārttigai, 15, but also of the times of Dēva Rāya II, found in Korukkai, in the Tanjore district, says that the ninety-eight subdivisions of the Valangai and the ninety-eight subdivisions of the Iḍangai classes joined together and evidently decided that "because they did not tax us according to the yield on the crop but levied the taxes unjustly. . . . we are about to run away. Then we realized that because we of the whole country (maṇḍalam) were not united in a body, we were unjustly (dealt with). . . . Hereafter we shall but pay what is just and in accordance with the yield of the crops and we shall not pay anything levied unlawfully".²

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² 216 of 1917; Ep. Report for 1918, pp. 163-4; see also Majumdar, ibid.

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The instances which we have given above, while they give us a comprehensive view of the measures adopted by the monarchs and people of Vijayanagara to suppress official tyranny, do not enable us to understand the nature of punishment which the rulers inflicted on those who violated what was thought to be established law. As we have already remarked, daṇḍa alone, according to the opinion of the Hindu lawgivers, is responsible for the maintenance of order and peace in the society. We have now to acquaint ourselves with such of the details which we can gather about punishment under Vijayanagara.

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That the mediaeval rulers were aware of the old notions about punishment is apparent from the inscription dated A.D. 1545 already cited, which following the "former rate" ends with the order that "there is no annyāya (injustice), daṇḍa and kandāya (rent) for the citizens of the Āragarājya'.¹ The word daṇḍa used in this epigraph, in all likelihood, did not refer to mere *fine*: the Vijayanagara monarchs, as we shall presently narrate, used a distinct term for the latter.

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¹ E.C. VIII, Tl. 15, p. 166, op. cit. Rice translates daṇḍa into fine. ² E.C. IV, Ch. 97, p. 13, text p. 37, op. cit. ³ Manu, VIII, 114-16, p. 374; Āpastamba, II, 11, 29, 6; p. 170; Nārada: I, 19-26, pp. 100-120; Bṛihaspati, X, pp. 315-9. ⁴ Watters, Yuan Chwang, I, p. 172.

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Daṇḍa or punishment under Vijayanagara was generally of three kinds: fines, ordeals and death. The first of these, as given in an inscription of about A.D. 1370, is mentioned in connection with faults, annoyance, thefts, adultery and injustices, as prevalent in the Hadināḍ country (*tappu, tasadi, kalavu, hādara, annyāya*).²

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Punishments by ordeal were common in India from the earliest times. The classical canonists have laid down minute regulations about ordeals.³ When we come to the seventh century A.D. we find that, as Yuan Chwang relates, there were four kinds of ordeals in the country. "These are by water, by fire, by weighing and by poison. In the water ordeal the accused is put in one sack and a stone in the other, then the two sacks are connected and thrown into a deep stream; if the sack containing the stone floats, and the other sinks, the man's guilt is proven. The fire ordeal requires the accused to kneel and tread on hot iron, to take it in his hand and lick it; if he is innocent he is not hurt, but he is burnt if he is guilty. In the weighing ordeal the accused is weighed against a stone; and if the latter is the lighter the charge is false, if otherwise it is true. The poison ordeal requires that the right hind leg of a ram be cut off, and according to the portion assigned to the accused to eat, poisons are put into the leg, and if the man is innocent he survives, and if not the poison takes effect".⁴

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Śukrāchārya makes provisions for various kinds of ordeals, while describing what he terms the *divya* method of trial. "In the matter of decision of cases by the *divya*, fire, poison, vessel, water, virtue and vice, rice and oath—these are prescribed by the sages". He describes the fire ordeal thus: "The (accused) has to walk nine steps with a hot ball of iron in the hand or has to walk seven steps on hot charcoal, or has to take out a quantity of iron placed in hot oil by the hand, or has to lick by the tongue a very hot iron plate".¹

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¹ *Sukraniti*, IV., v, ll. 470-1, 474-7, p.

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The fire ordeal in the Pāṇḍya times was more after the model which is mentioned in the *Institutes* of Bṛihaspati.² A meeting of the inhabitants of the districts, cities and villages in Kōnāḍu, according to an inscription found in Kuḍumiyāmalai in the Pudukkōṭṭai State, and dated only in the second regnal year of a Tribhuvana Chakravartin Vira Pāṇḍya Dēva, was convened to consider a case of misappropriation by certain Brahmans. The pūjāris of the temple of Tirunalakkuṅgamuḍaiya-Nāyinār had misappropriated the cash and jewels of the temple. One of them, however, confessed having taken a portion of the lost cash and of having shared it with a carpenter. The others denied altogether but were evidently implicated by the evidence of their accomplice. The lying pujaris were ordered to be taken to the law-court (*dharmāsana*), where they were required to handle a (red-hot) ploughshare. On all of them burning their hands, they confessed their guilt. The inscription records that they were all ordered to be dealt with as sinners against the god Śiva (*Śiva-drōhin*).³

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We may, however, continue to deal with the question of ordeal by fire. To this category belongs the interesting case of Kannayya who held a red-hot substance in the presence of Hoysalēśvara in Dōrasamudra in about A.D. 1275.⁴

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The fire ordeal in Vijayanagara took the form of dipping hands in burning ghee. A communal dispute broke out in about A.D. 1580 between the barbers and washermen on one side and the potters on the other. The point at issue was whether the potters, at the time of marriage, were entitled to pare the toe-nails and tie on the upper-cloth. The barbers and washermen denied them this privilege; and the chiefs of the potters (kumbhāra-seṭṭigalu) placed the matter before the Government. The chiefs of the potters insisted on their rights and dipping their hands in (boiling) ghee, in the presence of the god Divya-Liṅgēśvara in Haradanahaḷḷi, won the case. Rāma Rāja Nāyaka then issued the following charter (śāsana) to the headmen of the potters (kumbhāra-svāmi): "For the potters the toe-nails may be pared and the upper cloth may be tied on—thus it is ordered".¹ The State, therefore, sometimes decided social questions by the ordeal of ghee.²

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²⁰⁴ The occasion when fire ordeal can be used is given on p. 205. ² This was also known in Upanishad times. ³ *Ep. Report* for 1907, p.

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⁷⁰ Cf. Bṛihaspati, *Institutes*, X, 5, 11, 28, pp. 315-6, 318; *Chhāndogya Upanishad*, VII, 1-3, pp. 108-9. ⁴ E.C. III, Md. 79, p.

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⁴⁷ Rice translates the passage thus: "holding? consecrated food", and adds a note: "a form of ordeal" ibid., n. (2). The text runs thus: *ā-Kannayanu dyiva hiḍidu*. Text p.

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¹⁵³ (*Ā-Kannayanu dibyava-hiḍiu*, Romanized version, p. 102). Since the whole proceeding seems to have taken place in the presence of Vira Narasimha at Dōrasamudra, it may be that Hoysala referred to here is the king himself. The passage would refer then to some burning substance. But it is quite possible that the interpretation given by Rice is more correct, and that we have to take consecrated food here. B.A.S.

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¹ E.C., IV., Yl. 2, p. 27, text, p. 72.

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² For later accounts see My. Arch. Report for 1918, p. 54, op. cit.; A.S.R. for 1924-5, p. 121; Nelson, Mad. Count, I, p. 83; Abbé Dubois Hindu Manners, II, p. 661, App. VI, p. 717 (1897 ed).

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Fines and punishment by trampling under foot were imposed on those who refused to pay tribute or those who had killed their sons, in the twelfth century, in the Kadaṁba-maṇḍala. Sittaraṭevaḷe Bārasinda refused to pay tribute in about A.D. 1139. And so they "trampled on his shoulders and he went to svarga (avara hegala meṭṭi svargakke sanda)".³

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³ E.C., VIII, Sb. 73, p. 12. Rice suggests the following: 'Perhaps he was trampled by an elephant, being buried up to the neck in the ground'. Ibid., n. (1).

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Capital punishment, especially when directed against persons who had committed treason, took a hideous shape in Vijayanagara. It ranged from confiscation of property to death under the feet of elephants. Nuniz enumerates the different punishments given by the Government. "The punishments that they inflict in this kingdom are these: for a thief, whatever theft he commits, howsoever little it be, they forthwith cut off a foot and a hand, and if his theft be a great one he is hanged with a hook under his chin. If a man outrages a respectable woman or a virgin he has the same punishment, and if he does any other such violence his punishment is of a like kind. Nobles who become traitors are sent to be impaled alive on a wooden stake thrust through the belly, and people of the lower orders, for whatever crime they commit, he forthwith commands to cut off their heads in the marketplace, and the same for a murder unless the death was the result of a duel. For great honour is done to those who fight in a duel, and they give the estate of the dead man to the survivor; but no one fights a duel without first asking leave of the minister, who forthwith grants it. These are the common kinds of punishments, but they have others more fanciful; for when the King so desires, he commands a man to be thrown to the elephants, and they tear him in pieces. The people are so subject to him that if you told a man on the part of the King that he must stand still in a street holding a stone on his back all day till you released him, he would do it".¹

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¹ Sewell, For. Emp., pp. 383-4.

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What happened to those who plotted against the life of Dēva Rāya II is told by 'Abdur Razzāq thus: "All these who had been concerned in that plot, were either flayed alive, or burnt to death, or destroyed in some other fashion, and their families were altogether exterminated. The person who had brought the invitation was also put to death".² The Vijayanagara rulers evidently carried to its worst limits the injunction of Kauṭilya, who says that "the king in the interests of righteousness may inflict punishment in secret on those courtiers or confederacy of chiefs who are dangerous to the safety of the kingdom and who cannot be put down in open daylight".³ According to the same authority, "any person who aims at the kingdom, who forces entrance into the king's harem, who instigates wild tribes or enemies (against the king) or who creates disaffection in forts, country parts, or in the army, shall be burnt alive from hand to foot".⁴

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² Elliot, Hist. of India, IV., p. 116.

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³ Arthaśāstra, Bk. V, Ch. V., 238, p. 287.

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⁴ Ibid., Bk. IV, Ch. XI, 229, p. 277.

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That Nuniz is accurate in his statement concerning the punishment given to culprits under the feet of elephants, is evident from the remarks of 'Abdur Razzāq, who writes thus: "Sometimes they order criminals to be cast down before the feet of an elephant, that they may be killed by its knees, trunk, and tusks".⁵ The sculptures in the ruins of the capital amply prove the assertions of these two foreign witnesses. In decreeing this inhuman penalty on persons who had committed grave offences, the rulers of Vijayanagara seem to have exchanged the precepts of the ancient and mediaeval canonists for the methods of the Muhamadan monarchs. Punishment under an elephant does not [This page is blank]

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⁵ Elliot, ibid., p. 111.

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Bas-reliefs illustrating punishment under Elephants. [Vol. I, p. 390.]

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figure among the different kinds of daṇḍa mentioned by Kauṭilya and Śukra.¹ Instead of promulgating such kind of punishment, Kauṭilya seems rather to commend death under an elephant as a happy end. "A man who is hurt to death by an elephant under provocation (caused by himself) shall supply not only a kumbha of liquor (less by a droṇa), garlands, and scents, but also as much cloth as is necessary to wash the tusks; for death caused by an elephant is as meritorious as the sacred bath taken at the end of a horse sacrifice".²

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¹ Arthaśāstra, Bk. IV, Chs. IX-XIII, pp. 267-86: Śukranīti, IV, i, 11. 89-91, p. 130. ² Arthaśāstra, ibid., Ch. XIII, 234, p. 283. ³ Firishtah, Briggs, The Rise, III, pp. 111-12. But this method of punishment seems really to have originated in the south. B.A.S. ⁴ Metthwold, Relations of Golconda, p. 57. ⁵ Faria y Sousa, Asia. Port., II, pp. 226-30, for an account of Mylapore and St. Thomas. Heras, Aravidu, p.

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Execution by means of elephants seems to have been common in some of the Muhammadan courts. Thus in Bijapur in A.D. 1557 "Ibrahim Adil Shah, soon after the restoration of his affairs, having long abandoned himself to hard drinking, and to promiscuous intercourse with women of bad character, was afflicted with a complication of disorders. During his illness, he put to death several physicians who failed in curing him, beheading some, and causing others to be trodden to death by elephants, so that all the surviving medical practitioners, becoming alarmed, fled from his dominions".³

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In Schorer's Relation of the Trade of the Coromandel Coast, we have the following account of the method in which justice was administered at Masulipatam. "Justice is administered mainly by the Governors. The crime most commonly punished is theft. Apart from this, the Governors cause great trouble to their subjects in order to get money from them by fair means or foul. The reason is that they have to pay the rent of their farm annually to the King; and should they default in this, they are ordered to come to the King, who has them thrown before the elephants . . ."⁴

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The Portuguese travellers and writers affirm that this was the penalty which Rāma Rāja gave to the Portuguese fidalgo who had given false information, in A.D. 1558, or thereabouts, to the Regent about the wealth of St. Thome.⁵

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⁶⁹ For earlier and later accounts of executions by elephant, see Ibn Baṭūṭa, pp. 145, 147, (n); (Lee); Foster, Early Travels, p. 109.

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The terror which these penalties caused among the people must have been as much responsible for their orderly behaviour as the fear of suffering the consequences of a curse or of excommunication from the caste. The numerous inscriptions which have been preserved in good condition are in themselves sufficient to prove that curses must have exercised a powerful influence over the minds of the people. Some of the curses, like those mentioned above, protected the grants and endowments,—which for the sake of permanence and advertisement, according to the usage of the times, were engraved on stone,—from wilful damage at the hands of the citizens. That the people did tamper with these documents is apparent from an inscription dated Śaka 1466 (A.D. 1544-5) which records the renewal of a grant of a village, originally made by Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya, by Aliya Liṅga Rāya, because in the reign of Achyuta Rāya the village had been resumed "through the mischief of mean-minded men".¹

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¹ 62 of 1904.

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