Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c9.s2.85

v1.c9.s2.85

(d) The reason why the name of Nāga Dēva appears in A.D. 1344 is to be found in the inscription styled "Gd. 46". Here under the date A.D. 1370 we have all the contents of "Mb. 158" repeated—the same monarch makes a grant of the same village to the same donee.¹ The question that may be asked is—what was the necessity for a grant of A.D. 1344 to be repeated in A.D. 1370? We admit that there are instances of a grant having been repeated after a space of some years. Thus in A.D. 1531 Achyuta Rāya confirms along with the sapta-sāgara-dāna, to Śrinivāsa, son of Subramanya, the village of Baḷekere, "which King Narasimha had formerly presented, with enjoyment for one life, to his father Subramanya at Śrīśaila".² Then, again, in Śaka 1448 (A.D. 1526-7) we have the confirmation of the grants of land originally made to the gods and the Brahmans of the five villages Malakatāla, Chintalacheru, Kōṭakoṇḍa, Teligi, and Chitrachēḍu in the Guṭṭi-rājya in the time of Vira-pratāpa Kumāra Bukka Rāya, by the Mahānayakāchārya Kāṭi Nāyaka, by his descendant Tammā Nāyaka.³ In the one instance we have a definite reason why the grant was renewed. Achyuta Rāya confirms a grant for life, because the previous one had only been an endowment for one life. About the second example we may presume that a reconfirmation was called for by some disturbed state of things the nature of which we do not know.