Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s2.21

v1.c7.s2.21

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.