Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c15.s2.t2.4

v1.c15.s2.t2.4

They spent enormous sums on horses imported from Ormuz. Nuniz tells us that the Emperor bought every year 13,000 horses from Ormuz. "The King every year buys thirteen thousand horses of Ormuz, and country-breds, of which he chooses the best for his own stables, and he gives the rest to his captains, and gains much money by them; because after taking out the good Persian horses, he sells those which are country-bred, and gives five for a thousand *pardaos*, and they are obliged to pay him the money for them within the month of September; and with the money so obtained he pays for the Arabs that he buys of the Portuguese, in such a way that his captains pay the cost of the whole without anything going out of the Treasury".³ Whatever may be the principle underlying such a policy of economizing the revenues of the State, it is clear that the Vijayanagara monarchs were in dire need of horses. Nuniz writes thus about Sāḷuva Nṛsiṁha: "He caused horses to be brought from Oromuz and Adeem (Aden) into his kingdom and thereby gave great profit to the merchants, paying them for the horses just as they asked. He took them dead or alive at three for a thousand *pardaos*, and of those that died at sea they brought him the tail only, and he paid for it just as if it had been alive".⁴ The idea which lay behind the system of paying for a dead horse is also inexplicable.