Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s5.16

v1.c13.s5.16

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