Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s2.50

v1.c7.s2.50

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: