Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c8.s4.43

v1.c8.s4.43

Beyond the Western Ghauts too the land could boast of prosperous towns. Barbosa continues to remark on the state of the country thus: "After passing this mountain range, the country is almost entirely plain, very fertile and abundantly supplied in the inland districts, which belong to the kingdom of Narsinga in which there are many cities and villages and forts. . .".² One of these last mentioned was Eragana-halli or Koṭe Eragana-halli in the Koṅgunāḍu, nine miles west of Tālavāḍi, in the forest country between the Satyamangala tāluka of the Coimbatore district and the Chāmarājanagar tāluka of the Mysore State. This was in the middle ages between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Christian era an important place, a military station, and a land of heroes, landlords, and religious institutions. The Jaṅgama choultry,—the landed property of which was, according to an inscription dated Saka 1454 (A.D. 1532-3) of the times of Achyuta Rāya, apportioned between Bhōga Nañjayya, a trustee of a choultry and Dēvaṇnayya of a Brahman feeding-house,—and the fact of its having possessed abundant share of land in the Eragana-halli village make us believe that that place must have enjoyed considerable repute as a centre of both Jaṅgama and Brahman influence. One of the viragals found in the same village dated in A.D. 1386-7, during the days of Harihara Rāya II. commemorates the death of Chikkatamma, son of Killi Gauda of Eragana-halli, while fighting single-handed against thieves who had concealed themselves on the Toṇḍanabeṭṭa hill. The death of this hero and the existence of many sculptured hero-stones in the neighbourhood suggest that the village of Eragana-haḷḷi of the modern days may have been a place of some consequence in Vijayanagara times.¹