Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s2.54

v1.c7.s2.54

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.