Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s3.117

v1.c7.s3.117

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