Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s5.38

v1.c13.s5.38

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