Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s1.62

v1.c7.s1.62

Meanwhile, the sovereignty over the south was imperceptibly changing hands. The old royal house of the Hoysalas was being replaced by the new one of the Kurubas. The transference of power took place so indiscernibly that neither the Sultan of Delhi nor his Viceroy at Madura ever realized that a small family of five brothers, guided by the profound wisdom of two ascetics, and almost with the sanction of the Hoysalas themselves, was laying the foundation of the mightiest Hindu Empire southern India had ever seen. The Hindu kingdom of the Hoysalas, however, was destined yet to linger on. In A.D. 1340 a grant refers to the *yuvarājābhishēka* ceremony of Prince Vira Virūpāksha Ballāla by Vira Ballāla III himself.³ This event took place at Hosapaṭṭaṇa. But in the same year Ballāla III seems to have given prominence to a man who was to be, in all likelihood, the prime-factor in the struggle against Islām. In that year the *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara*, Master of Four Oceans, *Arirāya-vibhāḍa*, *Bhāshege-tappuva-rāyara-gaṇḍa*, Vira Hariappa Oḍeya was ruling the kingdom of the world, while the government of the kingdom of Kukkala-nāḍu was given over to Mayilaya Nāyaka under him.⁴