Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s3: Section 3. The Origin of the Founders of Vijayanagara
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s3
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Section 3. The Origin of the Founders of Vijayanagara
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The imperative needs of the times eclipsed the question of the birth and pedigree of the rulers. So prominent was the part which these founders played, and so deeply was it appreciated by all the people, that distant provinces of the Empire claimed them for themselves. Thus we find that the founders of the first dynasty are said to have been related to the royal house of Warangal; some say that they were connected with the Tuḷuvas of the west coast; others would trace the descent of the founders to the Yādava line; while some would link them with the house of the Hoysalas of Dōrasamudra. The Telugu, Tuḷuva, Yādava, and Karṇāṭaka claims, therefore, will now be examined.¹
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¹ Bombay Gazetteer, XXII, p. 402.
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Of all these that which has gained most popularity is the Telugu origin of the first dynasty. In fact, the mention of a Idumakaṇṭi Gaṅgi Reḍḍi Gāru as a servant under Bukkarāya Oḍeya in Nellore about A.D. 1314-5;² the marked leaning which the Vijayanagara rulers showed, especially during and after the times of Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya the Great, for all things Telugu; and the prominence which the last dynasty—the Āraviḍu—acquired in the annals of the Vijayanagara Empire—all heighten the belief that the founders were really of Telugu origin. It is said, for example, according to tradition that Harihara and Bukka "were descended from a series of petty princes or landholders, possibly feudatories of the Belal kings, or even of Pratāpa Rudra, who took advantage of a period of public commotion to lay the foundation of a new state;"³ and that these two "fugitives from Warangal after it was taken by the Mohamedans encountered the sage in the woods, and were elevated by him to sovereignty". This makes the two brothers officers of the Muhammadan conqueror of Warangal, who were sent by their master, after the capture of that city, against the Ballāḷa Rāya. They were defeated, their army dispersed, and they fled into the woods where they founded Vijayanagara.¹
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² Butterworth-Chetty, *Nellore Ins.*, II, p. 643.
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³ Wilson, *Mackenzie Collection*, Intr., p. cxli (1828 ed.); p. 84 (1882 ed.).
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¹ Wilson, Mack. Coll. Intr., p. cxl. (1828 ed.); p. 83. (1882 ed.).
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Buchanan relates in the same manner: "In the year Sarvadavi of this Raja Worugulla Pritapa Rāya, the house guards of the treasury were Hari hara and Buca Rāya. According to this order, these two men came to Vijaya-nagara. The year Sarvadavi is the commencement of the kingdom of the Rāyarū. This year, on Monday, the 5th of Chaitra, they placed the pillar (a ceremony similar to ours of laying the foundation stone) for building Vijaya-nagara. The Rājās were placed on a throne of jewels".² These two traditions have led many to remark that "an off-shoot of the royal house of Warangal established a dynasty in the south, at the city of Vijayanagara on the Tumbadra. The name of Karnata fell into disuse",³ and that the greatest monarch of the family, Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya "was descended from an off-shoot of the royal family of Telingana".⁴
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² Buchanan, A Journey through Malabar, Canara and Coorg, III, p. 307; see also p. 113.
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³ Wheeler, A History of India from the Earliest Ages, IV, P. 1, p. 89.
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⁴ Wheeler, ibid., p. 91. Cf. Workman, Through Town and Jungle, p. 137. (1904).
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Col. Mark Wilks, while narrating the capture of the city of Warangal by the Muhammadans, writes: "Two illustrious fugitives, Booka and Aka Hurryhur (i.e., Bukka and Hakka or Harihara respectively), officers of the treasury of the dethroned king of Warankul (i.e., Warangal), warned by one of those sacred visions which precedes, or is feigned to precede, the establishment of every Hindoo empire, formed the project of a new government, to be fixed on the banks of the Toombudra, a southern branch of the Kistna, under the spiritual and temporal guidance of the sage Videyarannea (Vidyāranya) . . . This origin of the new government at once explains the ascendency of the Telinga language and nation at this capital of Carnatic. . . . The government founded by foreigners was also supported by foreigners; and in the center of Canara, a Telinga court was supported by a Telinga army . . . "⁵
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⁵ Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India, I, pp. 13-4: (1810); I, p. 8 (1869); Heras, The Beginnings, p. 62.
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Wilson recapitulates the stories of the foundation of Vijayanagara thus: "The foundation of the state of Vijayanagar is very generally admitted to have arisen out of the subversion of the Hindu governments of the Kakateeya and the Belāla Rājas by the incursions of the Mohamedans in the beginning of the fourteenth century.¹
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¹ Wilson, The Mack., Coll. Intr., p. cxl, (1828 ed.); p. 83, (1882 ed.).
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Sewell in his *A Forgotten Empire* writes: ". . . the two brothers, (Harihara and Bukka), Hindus of the Kuruba caste, who were men of strong religious feeling, serving in the treasury of the king of Warangal, fled from that place on its sack and destruction in 1323 and took service under the petty Rājah of Anegundi".²
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² Sewell, For Emp., p. 23. But Sewell himself criticizes this story as found in Buchanan. See infra p. 89. This does not, however, prevent him from repeating the same story.
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Dr. Vincent Smith writes: "Good authority exists for regarding the brothers as fugitives from the eastern Telinga or Telugu kingdom of Warangal".³
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³ Smith, Oxford History of India, p. 301, (1923).
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Mr. Suryanarayana Rao is also inclined to admit the Telugu origin of the family.⁴
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⁴ Suryanarayana Rao, The Never to be Forgotten Empire of Vijayanagara, pp. 19, 148.
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Mr. Rangachari is also of the same opinion: "The Rāyas of Vijayanagar were probably Telugus, though their capital was in the Canarese country."⁵
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⁵ Rangachari, I.A., XLIII., p. 113.
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To Mr. Lewis Rice, too, the Telugu origin seemed plausible: "They may have descended", says he, "from feudatories either of the Hoysala Ballālas or of Pratāpa Rudra of the Kākaṭeya family."⁶
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⁶ Rice, Mysore: A Gazetteer, I, p. 223, (1877); I, p. 345 (1897); Heras, The Beginnings, pp. 62-3.
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Without entering into minuter details,⁷ it may be said that the Telugu claims cannot be entertained for the following reasons:
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⁷ Heras has also dealt with this question. Read, The Beginnings, p. 61, seq.
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Firstly, it is hard to believe that Pratāpa Rudra of Warangal, who was at deadly grips with the Muhammadan general, would have advised his guards of the treasury, or his own relatives, to go to the south and found an Empire when he himself was in the direst need of all possible aid from his relatives and feudatories.
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Secondly, granting that Pratāpa Rudra did send some of his relatives to the south, it is difficult to understand how these royal persons failed to keep up a royal practice. According to the Hindu lawgivers, the genealogical portion of grants must give the names of at least three generations.¹ If the founders of Vijayanagara were really of the royal line of Warangal, both according to the direction of the lawgivers and according to the usage of the land over which they ruled, they would certainly have given the names of at least three generations of rulers who preceded them either in the direct or in the indirect line. But all the inscriptions of the founders hitherto discovered carry the traditions only as far as Saṅgama, the father of the five brothers. The absence of the famous principle laid down by the Sanskrit lawgivers, which the Vijayanagara monarchs themselves carried out,—as they did many a great precept of the ancients,—is enough to disprove the connection between the first dynasty of Vijayanagara and that of Warangal.
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¹ Fleet, Dyn. Kan. Dist., p. 18.
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Thirdly, the story of the foundation of Vijayanagara by the five brothers with the aid of the sage Vidyāraṇya is based on certain inscriptions the authenticity of which has been questioned on historical grounds. And, as we shall see in the ensuing chapters, much credence cannot be given to the story of the Hare, the Ascetic, and the five brothers, and the consequent founding of the city of Vijayanagara with the help of Vidyāraṇya. The versions in Buchanan and in the *Mackenzie Collection* presuppose the existence of a Vijayanagara before the royal fugitives came from Warangal. It will be seen that the founders of the Empire for some years remained content to rule from the Hoysala capitals, and then, after some time, one of them built the famous City of Victory.
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Finally, all these stories speak of the intimate relationship of the founders with the great ascetic, Vidyāraṇya. Epigraphical and contemporary evidence, however, belie such an assumption. For the fact was that the family priest of the founders was at first Kāśivilāsa Kriyāśakti Paṇḍita, and not Vidyāraṇya.²
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² Vide below Chapter III. Cf. Heras, The Beginnings, p. 61 seq., 118, seq.
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The second set of claims centres round Tuluva, which has also declared the founders to be her own. It is said that Mādhava Vidyāraṇya propitiated the favour of the goddess Bhuvanēśvarī, and discovered a treasure which he bestowed on Harihara and Bukka. "These last two persons appear to have been sons of Sangama, most probably a feudal chieftain of Tuluva, under the Belala rajas; but they themselves were, apparently, soldiers of fortune who had been in the service of the Warankal kings".¹ Then again, according to some, "the first princes of the family were from Telingana, but others brought them from Tuluva, which seems most probable, as they were possessed at an early period of their intercourse with the Mohamedans, of sea-ports on the western coast".² The discrepancy arises from the confusion which tradition has made between the first dynasty on the one hand and the second and third on the other. These latter were called the Sāluva and the Tuluva dynasties respectively of Vijayanagara; and it was the Tuluva family which sent forth the greatest Vijayanagara monarch, and gave to south India the most glorious age in her mediaeval history. In the Amuktamālyada, for example, the history of the lunar race is given, and it is said that by the medium of the Tuluva country, the line of Narasiṃharāya and Kṛṣṇa Rāya sprang into fame.³ All epigraphical evidence, of course, supports the Tuluva origin of the third dynasty of Vijayanagara. It may be interesting to note in this connection that a coin of Narasiṃha also proves his Tuluva origin. Elliott remarks about a coin figured by Wilson from the Mackenzie Collection: "The Kuppēlūr inscription describes him (Narasiṃga) as the son of Isvara, and a coin bearing this name may be explained in this connection. It represents the figures of Rāma and Sita, seated with Hanumān, and on the reverse, the word Isvara in Canarese..."⁴ Further, the very close connection between the Tuluva and the Vijayanagara rulers can also be made out from the fact that Dēva Rāya's elder sister, Harimā, married Sāluva Tippa Rāja, of the Lunar race,⁵ a person who could have belonged to no other Sāḷuva family except that which then ruled from Saṅgītapura in Tuḷuva.
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¹ Taylor, O.H.MSS., II, p. 92.
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² Wilson, Mack. Coll., p. 266.
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³ Taylor, A Cat. Rais., III, p. 227; Amuktamālyada, Canto. I, v. 23, seq., p. 17, seq. (Vāviḷḷa Rāmaswamy Sāstri, 1907).
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⁴ Elliot, Num. Orient, p. 95.
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⁵ E. C., XI, Cd. 29, p. 9.
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Mr. Rice is responsible for saying that the founders were connected with the Kadambas. "The founders of the Vijayanagara empire in 1336 seem to have been connected with the Kadamba family and from that time no trace is met with of the latter".¹ There is an echo of this in the remarks of the Russian traveller, Nikitin: "The Hindoo Sultan Kadam is a very powerful prince".² There is one fact, however, which goes entirely against the Kadamba origin of the founders of Vijayanagara. Mārappa, one of the five brothers, as we have already noted, conquered the Kadamba king who was like Śakra, surrounded with elephants and horses and foot-soldiers, and then established his provincial seat at Chandragupti. If the first family really traced its descent from the Kadambas, there was no need for Mārappa to defeat a Kadamba king.
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¹ Rice, Mysore Inscriptions, p. xxxvi.
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² Major, India in the Fifteenth Century, p. 20.
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The Yādava origin of the first Vijayanagara house has found favour with a few, but is not accepted by the many. The able discussion of the subject by Sir Walter Elliot needs little further comment; but it may not be out of place to note the grounds on which the Yādava descent of the founders may be said to rest. It is said that according to a drama called Nārāyaṇavilāsa, written by Prince Virūpāksha, grandson of Rāma, and (grand) son of Bukka, Harihara II married Mallā Dēvi, the (grand) daughter of the last great Yādava king, Rāmachandra. The lines on which this is based are the following:
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पुलो बुक्कनरेन्द्रस्य दौहित्रो रामभूपतेः ।
विद्यते हि विरूपाक्षो राजा हरिहरात्मजः ॥³
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³ Sēshagiri Sastri, Report on Sanscrit and Tamil MSS. for 1896-97, p. 90; Epigraphical Report for the Southern Circle for 1899, p. 22. "The 'Putro' has to be corrected into 'Pautro' 'Son's son'." Ep. Ind., III, p. 225; Ep. Ind., V, Ad. Cor., p. v; Ep. Ind., VIII, p. 200; I.A., XXXIV, p. 19.
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This theory of Mr. V. Venkayya is supported by such references as are to be found in the inscriptions dated A.D. 1379 which say that Saṅgama was of the Yādava race;⁴ and that dated in A.D. 1463 wherein it is stated that Saṅ- gama of the Yāduvaṁśa enabled Lakshmi the Karṇāṭaka Dēsa to wear permanently her earrings.¹ This is repeated in the inscription dated A.D. 1474.² Mr. T. A. Gopinatha Rao, however, denies the Yādava descent on the following grounds: "A futile attempt was made by Mr. Venkayya to trace the origin of the Vijayanagara dynasty. Harihara II had a son named Virūpāksha. In certain inscriptions and in the Sanskrit drama called the Nārāyaṇavilasa, the latter is said to be the son of Harihara II by his queen Mallā Dēvi, who is said to be the daughter of a Rāma Dēva, whom Mr. Venkayya identifies with the Dēvagiri Yādava king Rama Dēva, inferring that, having strengthened his friendship with the Dēvagiri king by this marriage, Harihara II then established the Vijayanagara kingdom. Rāmachandra of Dēvagiri lived between S. 1193 and 1231; Harihara II, one of the younger sons of Bukka I, reigned between S. 1298 and 1326, just about a hundred years after Rāmachandra. Consequently, the surmise is quite unjustifiable".³
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⁴ Rice, Mys. Ins., p. 55.
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¹ E.C., VIII, Tl. 206, p. 209.
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² E.C., III, Ml. 121, p. 68.
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³ Ep. Ind., XV, p. 11.
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In refuting thus the theory of Mr. Venkayya, Mr. Gopinatha Rao has rightly concluded that the disparity in the ages of Harihara II and the Yādava ruler goes entirely against the theory of the Vijayanagara king having married the daughter of Rāmachandra. But Mr. Gopinatha Rao has failed to identify the king called Rāma in the drama entitled Nārāyaṇavilāsa. This little point has until now remained unexplained. It is hardly possible that Virūpāksha could have been mistaken in the name of his maternal grandfather. Rāma Dēva, therefore, must have been a real name. This Rāma Dēva, I believe, is to be identified with the Sāḷuva Rāma Dēva, son of Sāḷuva Kāya Dēva. In an inscription dated A.D. 1384 it is said that when Harihara's son Bukka was ruling, the Vijayanagara army went to the Orangal country, and then the Turushkas came and attacked Koṭṭakoṇḍa, whereupon the Nāyakāchārya of Harihara Raya's house, Kāchi Nayaka's grandson Kampaṇa fell upon the enemy; and in the fight that ensued, Sāḷuva Kāya Dēva's son, the Maṇḍalika Sāḷuva, the shelter of the good in Talakkāḍ, and the terrifier of the Turuka army, Sāḷuva Rāma Dēva fell fighting nobly against the Turuka army.¹ According to Mr. Gopinatha Kao's own calculation, the dates of Harihara's reign fall between Saka 1298 (A.D. 1376) and Saka 1326 (A.D. 1404). Sāluva Rāma, who fell fighting in A.D. 1348, therefore, was a contemporary of Harihara II, and there is nothing improbable in his daughter Mallā Dēvī marrying Harihara. This would explain the fondness of the Vijayanagara monarchs for the Sāluva name and titles. Through the Sāluvas the Vijayanagara kings could lay some pretensions for a lunar descent, although their desire to be of the Yādava stock fails to carry conviction with it. At the present stage of our investigations, we may rest satisfied with the conclusion of Sir Walter Elliot on this matter: "However uncertain the source of the other families might be, the correctness of that assigned to the earliest Vijayanagar dynasty cannot be questioned, for it has always been known as the Kuruba line".²
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¹ E.C., XII, Ck. 15, p. 75.
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² Elliot, Num. Or., p. 90, and ibid., n. (1).
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The ambition to trace their descent from the Yādavas was shared by the Vijayanagara monarchs with those who preceded them—the Hoysalas, between whom and themselves there was a similarity not only of language and system of government, but also, it may perhaps be said, of race and descent as well. The question of the origin of the first family, therefore, needs here some detailed explanation. The account of Firishtah, the evidence from inscriptions, and two Kannaḍa accounts written by contemporary authors will be our data in the solution of the problem. Firishtah narrates the story thus: "This year (=A.H. 744=A.D. 1344) Krishna Naig, the son of Ludder Dew, who lived near Wurungole, went privately to Bilal Dew, Raja of the Carnatic, and told him, that he had heard the Mahomedans, who were now very numerous in the Deccan, had formed the design of extirpating all the Hindoos, that it was, therefore, advisable to combine against them. Bilal Dew, convened a meeting of his kinsmen, and resolved, first, to secure the forts of his own country, and then to remove this seat of government among the mountains. Krishna Naig promised, on his part also, that when their plans were ripe for execution, to raise all the Hindoos of Wurungole and Tulingana, and put himself at their head.
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"Bilal Dew, accordingly, built a strong city upon the frontiers of his dominions, and called it after his son Beeja, to which the word nuggur, or city, was added, so that it is now known by the name of Beejanuggur. He then raised an army, and put part of it under the command of Krishna Naig, who reduced Wurungole, and compelled Imad-ool-Moolk, the governor, to retreat to Dowlutabad. Bilal Dew and Krishna Naig united to their forces the troops of the Rajas of Maabir and Dwar-Sumoodra, who were formerly tributaries to the government of the Carnatic. The confederate Hindoos seized the country occupied by the Mahomedans, in the Deccan, and expelled them, so that in a few months, Mahomed Togluk had no possessions in that quarter except Dowlutabad".¹
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¹ Firishtah, Briggs, The Rise, I, p. 427. Cf. Wheeler, History of India, IV, Pt. 1, p. 83, n. (4).
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Sewell, however, remarks that the credit of resuscitating Hindu life is to be given to the house of Anegundi: "The check was caused by a combination of small Hindu states—two of whom already defeated, Warangal and Dvārasamudra—defeated, and therefore in all probability not over-confident; the third, the tiny principality of Anegundi. The solid wall consisted of Anegundi grown into the great Empire of the Vijayanagar. To the kings of this house all the nations of the south submitted".² This is partially correct when we realize the fact that the Beejanuggur of Firishtah refers to Vijayavirūpākshapura, named after the Vira Vijayavirūpāksha, son of Ballāla III, and built within the area of Anegundi which was the earliest capital of the founders of the Vijayanagara Empire.³
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² Sewell, For. Emp., p. 5; Slater, Q.J.M.S., II, p. 54.
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³ Cf. Heras, The Beginnings, p. 128.
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The Tārīkh-i Firūz-Shāhi locates the centre of activities in Kampili. We are told that "while this was going on a revolt broke out among the Hindus of Arangal. Kanyā Naik had gathered strength in the country, Malik Makbul, the nāib-wasīr, fled to Delhi, and the Hindus took possession of Arangal, which was thus entirely lost. About the same time one of the relations of Kanyā Nāik, whom the Sultan had sent to Kambala (Kampila) apostatized from Islām and stirred up a revolt. The land of Kambala also was thus lost, and fell into the hands of the Hindus".⁴
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⁴ Elliot, Hist. of Ind., III, p. 245.
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Recently two palm-leaf manuscripts in Kannada called *Paradāra Sōdara Rāmana Kathe* by Nañjuṇḍa, and *Kumāra Rāmana Sāṅgatya* by Gaṅga, both dealing exhaustively with the conquests of a king Kampila, have been brought to light by Mr. M. H. Rama Sarma.¹ These two accounts, while recapitulating the elements of truth as given in the version of Firishtah and the *Tārīkh-i Fīrūs-Shāhi*, make the two brothers, according to the opinion of Mr. Rāma Sarma, officers of the treasury of the Rāja of Kampila. Mr. Sarma's arguments may be summarized thus:
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¹ Rama Sarma. *The Kingdom of Kampila*, Journal of the Bombay Historical Society, II, pp. 201-8. About the same time an independent study of these MSS. was made by Dr. Venkata Ramanayya, *Kampili and Vijayanagara*.
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That, according to Gaṅga, the author of *Kumāra Rāmana Sāṅgatya*, an ancestor of the king of Kampila is said to have retired to the south after the destruction of Dēvagiri by the Turukas;
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That the refugee secured the estate for his maintenance at the hands of a chief who ruled at Chirtakūṭadurga;²
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² Sarma, ibid., p. 203.
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That one of the two records speaks of a "successful battle fought by Kampila with Ballāḷa"³ (Vira Ballāḷa III);
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³ *Ibid.*, p. 204.
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That "references in inscriptions to battles between the generals of Kampila and those of Ballāḷa are frequent";⁴
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⁴ *Ibid.*, pp. 204-5.
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That "Kampila was finally crushed" by the imperial forces of Delhi;⁵
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⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 207.
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That king "Kampila ruled at least from 1303 till 1325, possibly a little longer";⁶
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⁶ *Ibid.*, p.208.
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That among his vassals, as noticed by Nañjuṇḍa, there were "Bhāva Saṅgama, or Saṅgama, the brother-in-law, Bhaṇḍārada Harihara, and Bhaṇḍārada Bukkaṇṇa".⁷
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⁷ *Ibid.*, p. 205.
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And that "Hukka and Bukka, who were their treasurers, were perhaps the sons of one of the Saṅgamas in his service".⁸
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⁸ *Ibid.*, p. 208.
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While the two accounts of Nañjuṇḍa and Gaṅga enable us to identify the *Crynmata* of Nuniz with the *Kummata* of Rāmanātha, and to solve to a great extent the question of the political situation of the south at the time of its conquest by the Muhammadans, both of which Mr. Sarma has successfully done in his *Kingdom of Kampila*, there are two facts which seem rather difficult to understand:¹
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¹ See below, Chapter III.
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Firstly, whether a powerful prince like the Rāja of Kampila, who could twice defeat the imperial army,² and whose own army was composed of 100,000 foot, 5,000 horse and 100 elephants, which he sent against Ballāḷa III,³ would ever have been indiscreet enough to allow a family made up of a father and two sons to hold the important office of treasurers at one and the same time.
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² Sarma, J.B.H.S., II., p. 207.
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³ Ibid.
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Secondly, whether Vīra Ballāḷa III, as we have it on the evidence of inscriptions which we have already seen, would have allowed Harihara and Bukka to enter into his service, especially when he knew that both of them had held the office of treasurers in the government of his worst Hindu enemy, the Rāja of Kampila. One fails to see how Ballāḷa III could ever have made Harihara his *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara*, or Kampa, the son of Bukka I, his door-keeper, if the Hoysala ruler was aware of the former having served in the government of Kampila.
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However that may be, even the accounts of Nañjuṇḍa and Gaṅga add to the evidence which is overwhelmingly in favour of the point we are to understand, viz., that the first rulers of Vijayanagara were of pure Karṇāṭaka stock. The founders of Vijayanagara sprang from a Karṇāṭaka tribe; they ruled in the Hoysaṇa or Karṇāṭaka land; they maintained the Hoysala or Karṇāṭaka traditions, and even allowed the Hoysala officers to continue in their office; they showed great unwillingness to part with the birthplace of the Hoysalas; they were proud to call themselves rulers who made it possible for the *Lady Karṇāṭaka Dēśa* to wear permanently her ear-rings; they subscribed themselves till and beyond the days of their splendour, in the Karṇāṭaka language; and finally, their family god, even for many years after the fatal battle of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi was always a Karṇāṭaka deity. These reasons make it impossible for one to believe that they originated from the Telugu land, although it is true that at the end of a series of political events, a great Telugu dynasty took upon itself the much-worn mantle of Vijayanagara authority.
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The fact of their having sprung from a Karṇāṭaka tribe is never mentioned in any epigraph or poem. It is tradition which says that "the kings during whose reign they (Mādhava and Sāyaṇa) flourished, belonged to a low non-aryan caste, viz., that of the Canarese cow-herds; a caste which is respected to a certain extent on account of its members dealing with the sacred cow, though they are proverbially stupid to a degree and of filthy habits".¹ It may even be said that the original home of the Kuruba line was round about modern Hampe or the ancient Pampākshētra. This is inferred from the inscription dated A.D. 1376, already cited, which says that to drive out the Mlechchhas or Muhammadans, Kṛishṇa reincarnated himself "in the region of Pampāpuri", as Bukka-mahīpati, son of Saṅgama and Kāmāmbikā.²
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¹ Burnell, Mādhava, Dāyabhāga, Intr., p. x. ² E.C., IV, Yd. 46, op. cit. ³ My. Arch. Report for 1916, p. 56. ⁴ No. 522 of 1906; Rangachari, A Topographical List of the Inscriptions in the Madras Presidency, I, pp. 17, 103; Mack. Ins. Ceded Districts, No. 7, p. 20. ⁵ J. Bom. B.R.A.S., XII, pp. 338, 40. ⁶ E.C., X, Cd. 2, p.
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² The term Nijagali refers to Nijagli in Nelamaṅgala tāluka (E.C., IX, Intr., p. 24, n. (2); while the name Kaṭaka Rāya figures in a Nellore inscription (Butterworth-Chetty, Nellore Ins., I, 174, v. 53). What connection there is between these two names I cannot make out. The Rev. Heras in his Beginnings guesses about them thus: "Evidently this was a well-known person in the time of Bukka, perhaps the most famous king of the kingdom of Hastinavati", p.
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We have seen how these rulers were eager to refer their humble origin to the acknowledged royal lineage of the Hoysalas, and their consequent Yādava claims. Further, it has also been remarked how they governed in their early years from one of the Hoysala capitals, Hosapaṭṭaṇa. They ruled over the Hoysala territories as well. In A.D. 1346 Hiriya (Senior) Hariappa Oḍeya was ruling the earth from the Hoysaṇa country.³ In A.D. 1352 we have Bukaṇṇa ruling at Dōrasamudra and Penu-goṇḍa.⁴ Bukka I is represented as a Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara ruling over the Hoysaṇa country.⁵ In A.D. 1353 he is ruling from Hosapaṭṭaṇa, the royal city of, possessed of all titles, Nijagali Kaṭaka Rāya.⁶ This Hosapaṭṭaṇa can be no other than the Hosapaṭṭaṇa where Ballāḷa III performed the yuvarājābhishēka ceremony of his son.
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⁵⁵ B.A.S.
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That the Hoysala memories lingered on in the Vijayanagara mind for years to come can be seen from some more instances. In A.D. 1368 an officer called Gaṇapatima, acting under the orders of his master Basāvayya Daṇṇayaka, during the times of Bukkaṇṇa Oḍeya, was "like the treasury of his (i.e., of Basavaya's) right-hand, governing the south of the Kāvēri in the country of the strong-armed Viṣṇuvardhana Pratāpa Hoysala".¹ Then again in A.D. 1376, while Harihara II was at Vijayanagara, a royal grant was made of the village of Hebasūr, with its ten hamlets, belonging to Koṅguṇāḍu, on the north bank of the Kāvēri, in the Hoysaṇa country.² The same monarch in A.D. 1382 was ruling over Beḷanagara, the chief jewel in the crown of the Hoysala kingdom.³ Bukka Rāya, the son of Harihara, in A.D. 1388, was at Peṇugoṇḍa,⁴ which was once a Hoysala capital.
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¹ E.C., IV, Ch. 113, p. 15.
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² Ibid., Yd. 46, p. 59.
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³ Rice, Mys. Ins., p. 267.
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⁴ E.C., X., Gd. 6, p. 212.
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The Vijayanagara monarchs did not disturb the political machinery of the Hoysalas till they had gathered strength to set their own central authority on a firmer footing. Therefore, in A.D. 1346, we find a Pāṇḍya Chakravartin, with all titles, named Vīra Kāya, ruling in Sātalige under Hariappa Oḍeyar, who was then the Master of Eastern, Western and Northern Oceans, but not of the Southern Ocean.⁵ The name Pāṇḍya implies that he must have been related to the Pāṇḍyas of Uchchaṅgi; and that the Vijayanagara rulers continued the Hoysala traditions of allowing the old royal families to rule over the lands of their ancestors. In A.D. 1355-6 we have a more definite instance of the preference which the Vijayanagara rulers gave to Hoysala officers. The Commander-in-Chief of Bukka was the son of Naḍegoṇṭa-Sāyana, Mallinātha, "who was the exalted commander of the Turuka army, the Seuana army, the Telunga army, the powerful Pāṇḍya army, and the Hoysala army".⁶ In A.D. 1346 under Vīra Hariappa, as we have already remarked, there was the Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Ariya Vallappa Daṇḍanāyaka, who, in A.D. 1333, under Ballāla III, granted to the authorities and Pāla Bhaṭṭa of the temple of Singisvaram-Uḍaiya-nāyaṇār at Tēkkal, two villages as a dēvadāna.¹ The same officer under the same Hoysala ruler in A.D. 1336 granted as a sarvamānya, exempt from all taxes, certain lands to all the mahājanas of the brahmadēya village Ivaṭṭam alias Varadarājachaturvēdimaṅgalam in Pulliyur-nāḍu.² This important person, who was, as we have seen, a minister of Ballāḷa III, Harihara won over to his side by making him his aliya or son-in-law.
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⁵ E.C. VIII, Tl. 154, p. 193.
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⁶ Rice, Mys. Ins., pp. 2, 5.
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¹ E.C., X, Mr. 28, p. 163.
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² E.C., IX, Ht. 134, 137, p. 105.
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The earlier Vijayanagara monarchs, moreover, continued the Hoysala tradition by prefixing to their names one of the titles of one of the later Hoysala kings. It has not been explained till now why the founders of the Empire had the title of Oḍeyar along with those of Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara, Arirāyavibhāḍa, Bhāshege-tappuva-rāyara-gaṇḍa, etc. If, as has been assumed in some quarters, Harihara assumed royal titles during the lifetime of Hoysala Ballāḷa III, or of his son Vira Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, nothing could have prevented him and his brothers from calling themselves Mahārājas and Rājaparamēśvaras from the very start of their political career. But Harihara I and Bukka I called themselves Oḍeyars as a mark of respect to the memory of the last Hoysala ruler, Vira Virūpāksha Ballāḷa, who, in an inscription dated A.D. 1342, as Mr. Krishna Sāstri rightly supposes, is called Hampe Oḍeyar.³
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³ Krishna Sastri, Q.J.M.S., II, p. 129; Heras, The Beginnings, p. 110.
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One of the principal officers of Bukka in A.D. 1369 was Vira Ballāḷa Rāya's Balavaṅkappa Nāyaka's chief Manneya, a Bhīma among royal champions, Rāya Nāyaka, "ruling the kingdom in Kundaūr durgam in the middle of the Koṅgu-nāḍu".⁴ It may even be suspected that the founders were desirous to carry on the Western Chālukya traditions as well. In A.D. 1387 we have a distant echo of a Western Chālukya name in Harihara's dharmma-manneya called the Chālukya Nārāyaṇa, Chāluki Chakravarti, etc., son of Mali Dēvi, and Vira Dēvarasa Vallabha Rāya Mahārāja.⁵ Even so late as A.D. 1426 an officer called Hole Koṅkaṇa, son of Siṁvarasa, under Dēva Rāya, is distinguished as the maintainer of the orders of the old kings of the Hoysala-nāḍu.⁶
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⁴ E.C., IX, Cp. 150, p. 164.
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⁵ E.C., XI, Ht. 127, pp. 135-6.
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⁶ E.C., III, TN. 55, p. 77.
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The Karṇāṭaka mould in the Vijayanagara mind is shown in the inscription dated A.D. 1359 which runs thus: "When the Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara etc. Vira Bukkaṇṇa Voḍeyar was ruling a peaceful kingdom, that Bukkaṇṇa Voḍeyar's Senior . . . Teppada Nārāyaṇa Oḍeyar, and Tipaṇṇa Oḍeyar (with various laudatory titles) unwilling to give up Sosevūru, situated in the Kali-naḍiyamma-nāḍu Four-thousand, which is reckoned the Kākare-nāḍ of the Pariya ghaṭṭa (or? Western Ghats) . . ."¹ The unwillingness of the founders of Vijayanagara to give up Sosevūru, the birthplace of the Hoysalas, may be explained on the supposition that they wished to retain this famous place under their immediate personal supervision, in order that they might always associate their own name with that of their illustrious predecessors, between whom and themselves there was so much in common. And when we have noted the matrimonial alliance between a Vijayanagara princess and a representative, though not on the throne, of the Hoysala house, this desire to retain the birthplace of the Hoysalas under the royal authority is well understood.
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¹ E.C., VI, Intr., p. 21. Mg. 25, p. 63. The inscription unfortunately is much defaced, and, therefore, the passage cannot be fully made out.
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Moreover, the Vijayanagara monarchs were proud to call themselves rulers who gave a new life to their Motherland, Karṇāṭa. An inscription dated A.D. 1463 sings the praise of Saṅgama in this manner:
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"In it (the Yaduvaṁśa) there was a king named Saṅgama of highest qualities, by whom the Lakshmī the Karṇāṭa country was enabled permanently to wear her ear-rings (i.e., She was not allowed to remain a widow, or without a lord)."² In the *Madhurāvijayam*, too, we have the statement that Bukka was the full moon to the eyes of the people of Karṇāṭaka. Thus writes the famous Princess Gaṅgādēvī:³
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² E.C., VIII, Nr. 69, p. 158; Tl. 206, p. 209.
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³ Gaṅgādēvī, *Madhurāvijayam*, Canto I, v. 75, p. 9; *Ep. Ind.* XVII, p. 203.
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कर्णाटलोकनयनोत्सवपूर्णचन्द्रः साकं तया हृदयसंमतया नरेन्द्रः ।
कालोचितान्यनुभवन् क्रमशः सुखानि वीरश्रिराय विजयाङ्गमभ्यवासीत ॥
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It is well known that the Vijayanagara rulers, till the rise of the Āraviḍu family, always subscribed themselves at the end of their grants, in the name of their tutelary deity of Hampe, Virūpāksha, in the Kannaḍa language.¹ Even in their last days, the signature, not in the name of Virūpāksha, but in the name of Rāma, was in Kannaḍa,² though the Telugu influence is certainly seen in an earlier inscription dated Saka 1535 (A.D. 1613) in which the king signs in the name of Śrī-Veṅkaṭēśa in Telugu.³
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¹ E.C., passim; Ep. Ind., XIV, pp. 240, 322.
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² My. Arch. Report for 1910-11, p. 53.
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³ Ep. Ind., XIX, p. 89.
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There is nothing which proves so much the Karṇāṭaka origin of the founders as the fact that the tutelary god of the first three dynasties was always a Karṇāṭaka deity. The family god of Saṅgama and his wife Kāmāmbikā and of their sons, was the "Guru of all gods, God Virūpāksha".⁴ It may reasonably be affirmed that this partiality of the founders to the family deity at Hampe was due to the influence of the great sage, Mādhavāchārya Vidyāraṇya, who was then guiding the destinies of the Empire; and also to the fact that Virūpāksha was the famous deity that had received in A.D. 1236 grants from the Hoysala king Sōmēśvara.⁵ There is a greater probability of another deity, and that also a Hoysala deity, having been the family god of the founders. An inscription of about A.D. 1397 records that by the orders of Harihara, Guṇḍa Daṇḍanātha, the Commander-in-Chief, restored the grants which Viṣṇuvardhana Biṭṭi Dēva, the ruler of the Hoysaṇa country, had given for the god Chennakēśavanātha of Bēlūr, the family god of that great ruler, and which by lapse of time had been greatly reduced. Guṇḍa further laid down rules for the performance of all the ceremonies formerly ordained by Biṭṭi Dēva Rāya, and re-built with seven storeys the gōpuram the doorway of which Gaṅga Sālār, the Turuka of Kallubarage, had burnt.⁶
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⁴ E.C., VIII, Sb. 375, p. 66.
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⁵ My. Arch. Report for 1920, p. 14.
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⁶ E.C., V. P. I., Bl. 3, p. 45. text p. 102.
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We have to go the times of Krishna Dēva Rāya to understand why Harihara was anxious to renovate the temple of Bēlūr and restore its grants. An inscription dated A.D. 1524 records that Basavappa Nāyaka, son of Jākaṇṇa Nāyaka, a servant of Krishna Dēva Rāya, made a grant for god Chennakēśavanātha of Vēlāpura, the god of the Mahārājādhirāja's royal family.¹ Then again in A.D. 1548 we have god Chennakēśavanātha of Vēlāpuri called the original (kulādhidēvate) family god of the Mahārājādhirāja Sadāśiva.² This inscription of Sadāśiva confirms not only that of his illustrious predecessor but also lends support to the view that the deity at Bēlūr was perhaps the family god of the earlier rulers as well. But when they exchanged Chennakēśavanātha of Bēlūr for Virūpāksha of Hampe is a point which is difficult to solve for the present. It is not denied that the Vijayanagara rulers continued to sign, till the end of the III dynasty, all their grants and deeds in the name of Virūpāksha. But so intimately were the people acquainted with the Karṇāṭaka origin of the monarchs that they always called the Vijayanagara kings Karṇāṭaka monarchs, and their viceroys Karṇāṭaka overlords. And even in A.D. 1571 in the time of Tirumala, the elaborate inscriptions of the king call them kings of Karṇāṭaka.³
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¹ E.C., V. P. I., Bl. 78, p. 64.
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² Ibid., Bl. 4, p. 45.
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³ Taylor, O.H.MSS., II, p. 153, and passim.
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Thus did Karṇāṭaka vindicate to the rest of the Hindu world her honour by sending forth a little band of five brothers, who, far from being "a stupid instrument for the renovation and restoration of Hinduism",⁴ stood out, Karṇāṭaka by birth and Karṇāṭaka in valour, as the champions of "all that was worth preserving in Hindu religion and culture".⁵
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⁴ E.C., XII, Tm. 1, pp. 1, 2. In the light of all this evidence it is unsafe, if not wrong, to assert that "there never was a Karṇāṭaka kingdom", when referring to Vijayanagara. Burnell, Vyavahāranirṇaya, Intr., p. v. For a further discussion of the subject on the origin of the monarchs, see Heras, The Beginnings, p. 69, seq.
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⁵ Burnell, Dāyabhāga, Intr., p. xi.
Linked texts (8)
- Āmuktamālyada — Kṛṣṇadevarāya 1515, Telugu
- Epigraphia Indica
- Indian Antiquary
- Epigraphia Carnatica
- Madhurāvijaya — Gaṅgādevī, Sanskrit
- Nogawa plates of [Gupta-]Samvat 321 — Sanskrit
- Parlā-Kimeḍi plates: endorsement of Rāṇaka Udayakheḍin — Sanskrit
- Stone channel inscription — Prakrit