Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c13.s6.1

v1.c13.s6.1

". . . no law is possible in the country where these pagodas are, save only the law of the Brahmans, which is that of the priests; and so the people suffer".² Thus wrote Nuniz condemning the system of administering justice under Vijayanagara. Were it not for the fact that the Hindu monarchs of Vijayanagara have left behind them evidence which enables us to judge their theory and practice of daṇḍa, and that foreign travellers of the same age definitely contradict this superficial observation of Nuniz, we should have been inclined to agree with his view and to pass an unfavourable verdict on the administration of justice in the great Hindu Empire. Nuniz would have us believe that the law which prevailed in the country was "the law of the Brahmans which is that of the priests". If this were really so, then, the kings of Vijayanagara must have been, at least to some extent, subservient to the "law of the Brahmans". On the evidence of 'Abdur Razzāq we may dispense with the notion that the kings of Vijayanagara were subject to the law of the Brahmans. This shrewd Persian ambassador remarks thus: "In the whole of Hindustān there is no *rāi* more absolute than himself under which denomination the kings of that country are known".¹ According to 'Abdur Razzāq the Vijayanagara monarchs were typical autocrats; according to Nuniz, the Brahmans were the lawgivers. In a certain sense it is true, we admit, that "it is impossible to suppose that at any time any Hindu king in S. India ever promulgated laws, as is done now-a-days, for instance, by the King of Travancore; the king always consulted the Brahmans who told him what to do".²