Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s5.53

v1.c13.s5.53

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is apparent from an inscription dated Śaka 1466 (A.D. 1544-5) which records the renewal of a grant of a village, originally made by Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya, by Aliya Liṅga Rāya, because in the reign of Achyuta Rāya the village had been resumed "through the mischief of mean-minded men".¹