Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s2: Section 2. The Needs of the Times

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s2

Language: English

Section 2. The Needs of the Times

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THE question of the race and nationality of those who led the Hindu confederacy was secondary to the question of the vital needs of the times. The first and foremost need was an organization that "would keep the aggressive Muhammadan efforts confined to the northern side of the Kṛiṣṇā".¹ The necessity of stemming the tide of foreign domination was linked with the equally difficult problem of creating a strong government. But since neither men nor money could be brought together for the maintenance of any kind of stable political machinery, there arose the third great need of preserving the Hindu society, its traditions, and its ancient Dharma from the ravaging influence of the new civilization. Hence we find this age to be an era made memorable because of the conquests of more than one mighty king; a period of intense literary life as represented by the famous Sāyaṇāchārya and his school; and by Vēdānta Dēsikāchārya, the renowned Vaiṣṇava scholar and poet;² and an epoch of religious excitement and moral awakening when the "teachings of Sankara, Rāmānuja, and Madhwāchārya; the doctrines of Vēdānta, Adwaita, Dwaita schools; the creed of the Jaṅgamas or Liṅgāyats, etc., led to interminable discussions, all urging their respective tenets with a zeal"³ which, though it showed itself at first in unwarranted "persecution of the Jainas and other sects, especially their extirpation of the Buddhists",³ still lived to create for centuries to come, chiefly through the timely intervention of the royal mediator, Bukka I and the unrecorded influence of the learned minister, Vidyāraṇya, an atmosphere of good-will and harmony which, when all other things are considered, was perhaps the greatest heritage which the Vijayanagara monarchs have given to the country.

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¹ S. K. Aiyangar, Some Contributions of South India to Indian Culture, pp. 299-300.

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² Mookerjee, Local Government, p. 13; R. G. Bhandarkar, A Peep into the Early History of the Dekkan, p. 73 (1895).

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³ Elliot, Num. Orient., p. 92.

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The times craved for a leader, and a blow was struck in the name of religion and country by five brothers acting under the influence of a great ascetic. These were Harihara, Kampa, Bukka, Mārappa, and Muddappa, and were the sons of one Saṅgama.¹ Bukka in the centre, Mārappa in the west, Kampaṇa in the east, and Harihara in the north-west, with the aid firstly of Kriyāśakti, and then of Vidyātīrtha, and then again of Mādhavācārya Vidyāraṇya, directed affairs for the liberation of the Hindus from the Muhammadan yoke.² From the centre Bukka was planning the subjugation of the south. For the story of the struggle against the southern Sultanate of Madura, we have to rely on Hindu sources like the Madhurāvijayam, the Kōyiloḷugu, the Rāmābhyudayam, the Sāḷuvabhyudayam, the Jaimini Bhāratamu, the Varāhapurāṇam, and the Pandyan Chronicle. The Madhurāvijayam relates that the king Bukka, after advising his son, the elder Kampaṇa, on the bearing suitable to his princely rank, sent him to the south, first against Sambuvarāya, the ruler over the Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam, then against the Vanyarājas, and, finally, against the Turushkas of Madura.³ The young commander gradually cut off all help which the southern Sultan might otherwise have received from the enemies of the rising Hindu power. He was, as narrated in the legend, enabled to do this chiefly through the aid of the divine sword which the strange woman presented to him. The conquest of the Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam was accomplished in about Saka 1282-83⁴ (A.D. 1360-1), and in ten years' time the Muhammadan governor at Samayavaram (Kaṇṇanūr), a place six miles north of Srirangam, was defeated.¹ It did not take a long time to conquer Madura, which was recovered by the Hindus in Saka 1293.²

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¹ Rice, Mysore and Coorg, p. 112; Ep. Ind., III, p. 32; E.C., III, Intr., pp. 21-2.

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² Butterworth and Venugopala Chetty, Inscriptions in the Nellore District, II, pp. 789-90; Madhurāvijayam, Intr., p. 31. A.S.R. for 1907-8, pp. 237, n. (1), 239-40; Heras, The Beginnings, p. 93. seq.

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³ Madhurāvijayam, Intr., pp. 5-6; Canto, III, vv. 34-44, pp. 24-6.

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⁴ E. Report for the Southern Circle for 1901, No. 250; Madhurāvijayam, Intr., p. 19.

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¹ Madhurāvijayam, Intr., p. 29.

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² Ibid; Ep. Ind., VI, pp. 322-31.

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The story of the destruction of the Muhammadan outpost at Samayavaram is thus narrated in the great Tamil poem *Srirangam Kōyiloḷugu*:

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“. . . Gōppaṇārya, the Brāhmaṇa general of Kampaṇa, was placed by his master in charge of the Province of Señji (Gingee). He was a Śrīvaishṇava by persuasion, and belonged to the Bhāradvāja gōtra, and the Āpastambha sūtra. While on one occasion when he had gone to Tirupati on a pilgrimage, he found in the central shrine of the temple of Veṅkaṭēśa on the Tirumala hill an additional bronze image, and on questioning about it, he learnt that it was the image of the God Raṅganātha of Srirangam, which, after being taken away from that place shortly before the Turushkas entered Srirangam to Tirunārāyaṇapuram by way of Jōtishkuḍi, Tirumāliruñjōlai, (Aḷagarkōyil), Kōḷikkūḍu (Calicut), and Puṅganūr, was kept for some time at Tirunārāyaṇapuram (Mēlukōṭe), and then finally taken to Tirupati Tirumala. On hearing this account from the priests, Gōpaṇṇa induced them to remove the image to his capital, and keep it in *pūjā* there until such time as the Mussulmans were driven out of Srirangam. The priests permitted him to do so, he took it, set it up temporarily in the beautiful rock-cut shrine of Raṅganātha on the hill of Siṅgavaram, a suburb of Señji, and arranged for the conduct of the *pūjā* and offerings.

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“The Chief of the Mussulmans who were left behind at Srirangam stayed for some time in the temple of Raṅganātha, but finding his health suffering by his stay in the island of Srirangam, he removed his quarters to Samayavaram (Kaṇṇanūr), situated at a distance of six miles north of Srirangam, fortified that place with the stones obtained by demolishing one of the outer enclosures of Srirangam, and was living there. At this time a Kāṇiyāḷa Brāhmaṇa, named Siṅgappirān, of an adjoining village, through the influence of a Hindu dancing-girl of Srirangam, who had entered into intimacy with Mussulman chief solely with the object of saving the temple from destruction, secured

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a post in the service of the Muhammadan chief, and was continuing to discharge his duties apparently faithfully to his new master. As soon as the news of the establishment of a powerful kingdom at Anegundi (Vijayanagar), the conquest of the Tondaimandalam by the representatives of that kingdom, and the establishment of a gubernatorial seat at Senji by a Vaishnava Brahmana reached the people of Srirangam, Tirumanattun-nambi, the son of Singappiran, despatched Uttama-nambi, one of the Sthalattar to Senji to inform Gopanarya that he would be communicating to the Governor news of the affairs of the Mussulmans from time to time, and that he should be prepared to start out with his army to crush the Muhammadans when the proper opportunity was intimated to him. Thus, then, was established communication between Senji and Samayavaram. Finally in Saka 1293, just 10 years after Kampana occupied Conjeeveram, an invitation was sent to him by Tirumanattun-nambi to march against the Muhammadans in Samayavaram and Srirangam, who had degenerated by drink and debauchery, and become thoroughly powerless to resist an attack." Gopanarya proceeded against Srirangam, crushed the Mussulmans, and on the 17th day of Vaikasi, in the year Paritapi, of the Saka 1293 (A.D. 1370-1), reset up the image of Ranganatha with great éclat. On this occasion old Vedanta Desika returned also to Srirangam from his retreat at Satyamangalam, and praised Gopanarya in two Sanskrit verses; these were engraved on the eastern wall of the first prakara of the Ranganatha temple.¹ The person, it is surmised, who suffered defeat and death at the hands of Kampana "must be the successor of Ahsan Shah".²

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¹ Srirangam Koyilolugu quoted by Gopinatha Rao in his Introduction to Madhuravijayam, pp. 25-9; Taylor, O.H. MSS. II., pp. 17, 111; A Catalogue Riasonée of the Oriental MSS. III., p. 439; 18 of 1899; Heras, Aravidu, p. 105; S. K. Aiyangar, South India, p. 116.

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² Gopinatha Rao, Madhuravijayam, p. 29; Ep. Ind., VI., p. 324. op. cit.

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The people heard the news of the downfall of the enemy with great joy and attributed to gods what men had failed to do. Thus the story of the opening of the doors of the Madura temple and what the people saw there, is narrated in the Pandyan Chronicle: "During these Mahomedan days, in the Virothikiratu year, of the era of Salivahana one thousand two hundred and ninety-three, the general of the King of Mysore, named Kampanudiaver, a native of Carnata, having conquered the Mahomedans, took possession of the kingdom. He opened the Siva and Vishnu temples, which had been locked-up, (throughout the country). He opened the god's temple at Madura; and obtained a personal view of the god. Things were found precisely as on the day when the temple was shut: the lamp that was lighted on that day, the sandal wood powder, the garland of flowers, and the ornaments usually placed on the morning of festival days, were now found to be exactly as it is usual to find them on the same evening of such festival days. The general seeing this miracle, was glad; struck his eyes and with great piety made the customary offering; he gave many villages to the temple, and many jewels, and established ordinances for the regular performance of worship. He (the general), with his son Yembanudiaver, and his son-in-law Porkashudiaver, ruled the kingdom thirty-three years, from Virothikirathu to Sitterabanu year. These last two also gave many jewels to the Siva and Vishnu temples, and ordered the sacred services to be conducted".¹ Kumāra Kampaṇa had saved the honour of the land; and there is no wonder, therefore, in the people calling him by the name of the province from which he hailed—Kampaṇa of Karṇāṭaka.²

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¹ Taylor, O. H. MSS., I, pp. 35-7; Heras, Aravidu, p. 114.

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² Taylor, ibid., I, pp. 35, 203.

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While Kampaṇa was shaking off the shackles of slavery in the south,³ and Kriyāsakti, Vidyātirtha and Vidyāraṇya were advising the young warriors as to the mode of administration, the Hoysala kingdom had already disappeared under the stress of the new movement. It must be remembered that the indefatigable sons of Saṅgama threw upon the enemy a united front; and this concerted action of theirs had the double effect of silencing all opposition at home, where, as we shall see, there was really none, and of annihilating the forces of Islām, which took two centuries and a half to combine again against the Hindus of southern India. We know that in A.D. 1343 Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, son of Ballāḷa III, was crowned king. This can be inferred from an inscription dated in that year which records the granting of a śāsana by Ballappa Daṇḍanāyaka, on the occasion of the anointment ceremony of Srī Vīra Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, to the farmers of Halle Hiriyūr. (ā Ballappa Daṇḍanāyakaru śri Vīra Virūpāksha Ballāḷa Dēvarige paṭṭavādalli etc.).¹ It could not have been, therefore, in that year that the new rulers unfurled the Vijayanagara banner. Three years later one of the brothers called Mārappa from Kallāsa, "acquired a kingdom in the west", by defeating, firstly, an unknown ruler, and then by directing his attention to the north, where he defeated the Kadamba king, surrounded like Śakra by an army composed of elephants, horses, and foot-soldiers, in a great battle. Thence Mārappa in order to see Śiva, the Lord of Gōkarṇa, the original creator of the world, came to Gōmantaśaila in Chandrugupti, where he ruled in peace.² In that same year (A.D. 1346) Harihara, hitherto known as Hariappa, assumed regal titles, and proclaimed himself the ruler of the whole country between the Eastern and Western Oceans.³ That this was indeed the real date of the foundation of the Vijayanagara Empire can be made out from an inscription of Harihara, dated in the same year (A.D. 1346) which says that "having conquered the Earth from the Eastern to the Western Oceans, in order to celebrate the festival of his victory (jayōtsavaṁ khyāpayituṁ akarōd dharmmaṁ uttamaṁ), he made an excellent grant".⁴ And that this was the Vīra Hariappa of A.D. 1340 can be gathered by noting the similarity of the titles which he assumed in that year⁵ to those which he had in A.D. 1346,⁶ and which his successors lived to prefix to their names.

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³ Ep. Ind., VI, p. 324, op. cit.

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¹ E. C., VI, Cm. 105, text, p. 202.

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² E. C., VIII, Sb. 375, p. 66.

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³ Ibid., Tl. 154, p. 193; E.C., VI, Intr. p. 21, Sg. I, p. 92; A.S.R. for 1907-8, p. 230. Sewell places the death of Harihara in or about A.D. 1343. For. Emp., p. 26.

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⁴ E.C., VI, Sg. 1, text, p. 347.

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⁵ E. C., IX, Nl. 19, p. 33, op. cit.

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⁶ E. C., X, Mr. 61, translit., p. 204.

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The year A.D. 1346, therefore, marks a new era in the history of southern India. It saw the land rise out from a period of eight and sixty years of struggle, during which the intrepid hoofs of alien soldiers had defiled the country in all directions, into an age when the new rulers did all they could to make the people more happy and peaceful than they had ever been before. After half a century of humiliation the people at last realized the need of winning freedom from alien rulers in order to protect their homes and their ancient heritage.

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The prompt action of the founders of Vijayanagara, and the fact of there being no revolution against them, need now to be explained. It may be argued that the Hoysalas acquiesced in the growing power of the new-comers,—two of whom, Harihara and Kampaṇa (the sons of the third of the five brothers, Bukka) had already seen service under Ballāḷa III, the former as the Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara probably over a region which included Kukkala-nāḍu, and the latter, according to the local chronicles of Madura, as the door-keeper of Vira Ballāḷa III,¹—out of sheer political necessity, or because of some alliance between themselves and the rising feudatories, the nature of which may be hypothetically summarized to be as follows.

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¹ S. K. Aiyangar in Satyanatha, *Nayaks*, Intr., p. 3.

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We are told that Harihara, along with his brothers, some nobles, and one Ballappa Daṇṇāyaka, went in A.D. 1346, on a pilgrimage to the famous Śringēri Maṭha which was then under the guidance of Bhārata-tīrtha Śrīpāda.² This Ballappa Daṇṇāyaka is mentioned as the *Aliya* or son-in-law of Harihara. A guess may be hazarded as to the lineage of this Ballappa whom Harihara, the founder of a great dynasty, thought fit to make his son-in-law. In A.D. 1297 we have Dāṭiya Sōmeyya Daṇṇāyaka’s son Singeya Daṇḍanāyaka and inhabitants of Periya-nāḍu remitting certain taxes for the god Dāmōdara.³ About the year A.D. 1314 we have under Ballāḷa Dēva his great minister Sōmeyya Daṇṇāyaka.⁴ In about A.D. 1319 the same minister was under the same monarch.⁵ In A.D. 1334 while Vira Ballāḷa was ruling, Singeya Daṇṇāyaka’s younger brother, Vallappa Daṇṇāyaka, made some grants.⁶ In A.D. 1336 Vallappa, younger brother of Dāṭi Singeya Daṇṇāyaka, figures again.⁷ In A.D. 1343 Vallappa, son of Dāṭi Sōmeyya Daṇṇāyaka, is the chief minister of Ballāḷa III.⁸ In the same year under Vira Ballāḷa’s son, Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, we have Ballappa Daṇḍanāyaka, son of Pāḍiya Sōmaya Daṇḍanāyaka.¹ In A.D. 1346 Vallappa was a Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara under Harihara.² Hence this Vallappa Daṇḍanāyaka was the younger brother of Singeya Daṇḍanāyaka, son of Dāḍiya Sōmaya or (Sōmeyya) Daṇḍanāyaka.

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² E. C., VI, Sg. 1, op. cit.

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³ E. C., IX, An. 84, p. 119.

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⁴ Ibid., Kn. 37, p. 125.

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⁵ Ibid., Kn. 69, p. 129.

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⁶ Ibid., Ht. 96, p. 99.

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⁷ Ibid., Ht. 134, p. 105.

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⁸ Ibid., Ht. 75, p. 96.

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¹ E. C., VI, Cm. 105, p. 49.

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² E. C., X, Mr. 61, p. 169, op. cit.

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We shall first ascertain the status Vallappa occupied in Hoysala history; and then trace the relationship between him and the Vijayanagara king. It is well known that the tendency of mediaeval monarchs was to bestow high offices on their near relations. Thus we find in A.D. 1339 the father of Vallappa and Singeya, Dāḍiya Sōmeyya, called "the minister descended from that king" (Ballāḷa III), [*tasya-rājānvaya*].³ This settles the princely rank of the father of Vallappa, and, therefore, of Vallappa himself. An inscription dated A.D. 1339 confirms this fact. It speaks of Vallappa Daṇḍanāyaka as being the younger brother of Dāḍi (Dāṭi) Singeya Daṇṇāyaka, who was the son of Vira Ballāḷa Dēva.⁴ Then again, as related above in A.D. 1334, we have the fact that in the reign of Ballāḷa Dēva, "during the times of one of his sons," Singeya Daṇṇāyaka's younger brother Vallappa made some grants.⁵ It is evident, therefore, that Dāḍi Sōmaya Daṇṇāyaka and his two sons, Singeya and Vallappa belonged to the Hoysala house. This Vallappa written in the Hosakōṭe inscription in Tamil is to be identified with Ballappa of the Śringēri Maṭha inscription. The name Pāḍiya Sōmaya of the Chikkamagalūr inscription is probably written by error for Dāḍiya or Dāṭiya Sōmaya.⁶

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³ E. C., IX, Ht. 43, p. 92.

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⁴ Mysore Archaeological Report for 1913-4, pp. 44-5.

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⁵ E. C., IX, Ht. 96, op. cit.

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⁶ I am glad to note that the Rev. Heras comes to the same conclusion as regards the relationship between Vallappa and Harihara. He says: "All these facts undoubtedly disclose that the three families of Ballāḷa III, of Harihara I, and of Dāḍiya Sōmaya, who so frequently intermingled with one another, were not only Yādavas but also belonged to the same common stock of the Hoysala-vaṁśa". The Beginnings, p. 93.

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If this is allowed, then, the wisdom of Harihara I, who gave his daughter in marriage to Vallappa or Ballappa, may be well appreciated. The Hoysala and Vijayanagara houses were thus united in the reign of Harihara. Firishtah's remark that the centre of activity might be traced to the "House of Bilal Deo", therefore, may be justified.

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That it was to the interest of these new relations of the Hoysalas to allow matters a free movement, can be seen by the way in which the *yuvarājābhiṣheka* ceremony of Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, or Ballāḷa IV, was conducted in A.D. 1340. The absence of any political struggle and the rapid rise to power of the founders of Vijayanagara may be explained, therefore, not by saying that the dumb millions in their traditional apathy did not mind who ruled over them; or by saying simply that the Vijayanagara dynasty was "a necessary continuative substitute for the fallen dynasty after the circumstances of a crushing foreign conquest",¹ but by tracing the true relationship which existed between the old and the new families; and especially by understanding the ideal which the founders of the latter placed before themselves, and which, in spite of foreign wars and palace intrigues, they and their successors succeeded in maintaining with firmness and splendour till the end of the sixteenth century. The vanishing rulers as well as the common people realized that the honour of their homes and the destiny of the country were safe in the hands of the descendants of Saṅgama.

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¹ Krishnamacharlu, I. A., LI, p. 233.

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The ideal which these new rulers set before them was extremely simple; for they understood that if their rule was to last long, their Empire was to be the channel through which the ancient currents of Chōḷa and Karṇāṭaka life were to flow undisturbed for the betterment of the land. That they fully comprehended the magnitude of their task can be understood by the extreme care with which they introduced any change either in the social or political sphere. From the setting up of pillars to commemorate a victory to the performance of the *tulāpurushadāna* ceremony; from the checking of revenue registers to the exemption of some of the most useful commodities, or classes of men, from taxation, the new dynasty set to work on the principles of the old ones which had guided the affairs of the Tamil and the Karṇāṭaka lands from the dawn of history till the fourteenth century. But this did not prevent them from setting before them an ideal which, in the strange words of an inscription dated A.D. 1341, was the following:

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"In the Kali age, evil having greatly increased, Dharma seeing that it was impossible for it to move about, went to the side of its master, the creator and benefactor of the world, and said: 'With only one leg (left), how can I travel about in the troubles of this Kali age? Show some mercy, lord, yours it is to remove the difficulties of those who bow before you.' Hearing this from Dharma, the Father (tāta) being favourable to the prayer he thus for a long time presented, made in the great royal line of which Sailaṅka was the lord, a king named Saṅgama".¹ Another epigraph gives the ideal in clearer terms. It is dated in the year A.D. 1376, and it runs thus: "In the world Achyuta (Kṛiṣhṇa) was born to Yasōdha and Naṅda Gōpa, and gave them a promise that he would eventually re-appear as a king to deliver the world when it was overspread by Mlēchchhas. Accordingly he was born in the region of Pampāpuri to Saṅgama and his wife Kāmābikā as Bukka-mahipati".²

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¹ E.C., VIII, Sb. 375, pp. 65-6.

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² E. C., IV, Intr., p. 23. Yd. 46, p. 58.

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Therefore, "the one object was the preservation of Hindu independence in South India, with all the multiplicity of its religions, Hindu and Jain, perhaps even to a very slight extent Buddhist, and providing, for the further development of these on peaceful lines, a home in the country, south of the river Kṛiṣhṇa".³ And Vijayanagara stood, not as an expression of Force, as some would have it,⁴ but "as the visible embodiment of the national resistance to save this enclave for the Hindus and keep it free from being overrun by the Muhammadans".⁵ That the Vijayanagara Empire shared the fate of all mediaeval empires is no justification for our condemning it as an organization which "contained no principles of development, and therefore could not be lasting", and that "like many of its kind, it was ruined by those very causes which had brought it into existence".⁶ The disaster which overtook the Empire in A.D. 1565 should not cloud our imagination in our endeavour to appreciate the genuine attempts of the founders, and even of their successors after the battle of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi, who, whatever may have been their defects as statesmen and soldiers, lived to work out a noble ideal, and to preserve with scrupulous care all that was great and good in the realms of Hindu thought and culture.

Linked texts (7)

Śrīraṅgam, Raṅganātha temple, time of Sundara Pāṇḍya — Sanskrit
Epigraphia Carnatica
Ranganatha Temple
Krishna
Madhurāvijaya — Gaṅgādevī, Sanskrit
Jaiminibhāratamu — Samukhamu Vēṅkaṭakṛṣṇappa Nāyakuḍu 1700, Telugu
Siyamangalam cave inscription of Vijaya-Nandivikramavarman — Tamil