Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c7.s3.33

v1.c7.s3.33

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.