Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c8.s4.5

v1.c8.s4.5

Among these Onor or Honor or Honnāvūru was well known for its antiquity. It was the chief city of the Hanuvara Dvīpa over which ruled the famous ally of Rāma, Hanumanta.³ In about A.D. 1170 the great minister Heggaḍe Lakumayya, having freed the kingdom of his royal master Hoysala Narasimha from enemies, gave grants of land for the worship of the god Keśava of Honnāvūru.⁴ Towards the end of the fourteenth century this city was under a Muhammadan governor named Jamāl-ud-din Muhammad Ibn Hasan, who was, according to Ibn Baṭūṭah, "subject to an infidel king, whose name is Haraib" (i.e., Hariappa Oḍeyar).⁵ Soon the little town rose into prominence as a centre of foreign trade. It was under a Vijayanagara viceroy whom Varthema styles "a pagan and is subject to the king of Narsinga"⁶ (i.e., Vijayanagara). This traveller has, as we have already seen in connection with the description of the fauna of the country, something to say about the general condition of the city. "There is," says he, "a great deal of rice here, as is usual in India, and some kinds of animals. . . . The air of this place is most perfect, and the people here are longer lived than we are".⁷ It came into some prominence in the history of the Portuguese and their relations with the Vijayanagara monarchs. Dom Francisco de Almeida burnt it in A.D.