Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s1.66

v1.c7.s1.66

He was not the only high officer who was given this privilege. In A.D. 1345 the Mahānāyakāchārya, Bhāshege-tappuva-rāyara-gaṇḍa, Vira Māji Hiriya Pemmaya Nāyaka granted land to Raṅganātha Bhaṭṭa's son Bhavbhūti Jāla in Eḷahaṅka-nāḍ as an agrahāra free of imposts.¹ Vira Māji Pemmaya Nāyaka does not mention his overlord. That the title Master of the Four Oceans assumed by Harihara in A.D. 1340 does not suggest to us the independent position of that officer under Ballāḷa, can be made out by the course of future events, and by a study of the relationship which existed between Harihara and the Hoysala family. We may suppose that this title, which, along with the two others, Arirāya-vibhāḍa and Bhāshege-tappuva-rāyara-gaṇḍa, formed the rightful beginning of the laudatory names of his successors, must have been given to him as a distinction for some act of personal bravery about which we know nothing at present. For it will be seen that in the year A.D. 1346 Harihara, on his assumption of royal power, will call himself Master only of three Oceans,—the Northern, the Western, and the Eastern—and not as he styled himself in the year A.D. 1340. It would not be far wrong to suppose that this Harihara was the same Dēvappa Hariappa, who figured as the Minister for Peace and War in the year A.D. 1309 on the eve of the destruction of Dōrasamudra.² It is quite likely that in view of the proposed part he was going to play in the great struggle, he had exchanged the ordinary Dēvappa for the more fitting Vira. However that may be, as far as the ruling powers in southern India were concerned, there was nothing in the air to show that the glory of the Hoysalas was going to be eclipsed by the rising splendour of another family. The credit of creating an opposition to Islām is given by most writers to people who were not Karṇāṭaka by birth. But whether or not the stalwart supporters of the Hindu Dharma were of Karṇāṭaka origin,—a question which will be discussed presently,—the Hoysalas saw no reason whatsoever for obstructing the members of the new family in carrying out the great duty which these latter had imposed upon themselves. This apparent indifference on the part of the Hoysalas was not without foundation.