Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c9.s3: Section 3. The Names of the Capitals
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c9.s3
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Section 3. The Names of the Capitals
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The kingdom of Vijayanagara has been known by various names. To the people of southern India it was the kingdom of Vijayanagara or Vidyānagara, (or merely Vidyā), Anegondi (Anegundi), Kuñjarakoṇa, Hosapaṭṭaṇa, or sometimes Virūpākshapaṭṭaṇa, Hampe-Hastināvati, or merely Hastināvati. Thus, as we saw in an unauthentic inscription, Bukka I was seated on the jewel throne in the city named Vidyā, distinguished as the abode of Vijaya.¹ In the inscriptions ranging from A.D. 1531 to A.D. 1563 the capital was called Vidyānagara. The attempt made by Rice to trace the derivation of the word Vijayanagara to Vidyānagara appears wholly untenable.² Sewell is, therefore, justified in asserting that the common derivation of the name of the city from that of the great sage is erroneous.³ The name Anegundi or Kuñjarakoṇa properly belongs to the parent city on the northern side of Tuṅgabhadrā. But in some suspicious documents it has been applied to Vijayanagara.⁴ In A.D. 1413 Anegundi is said to have been the capital of Vira Vijaya.⁵ The Vijayanagara Empire is called in the popular parlance of the present times Anegundi samsthānam. In A.D. 1347 the capital was called Hastinī.⁶ Hastināpura-Vijayanagara appears in A.D. 1395.⁷ In A.D. 1404 we have Vijayanagara Hastināvati.¹ Under Dēva Rāya the capital was styled Hampe-Hastināvati in A.D. 1436.² This name changed into Hastināvati Vidyānagari, is met with even in A.D. 1563.³ Hosapaṭṭaṇa was the designation of the capital in A.D. 1354 and A.D. 1355⁴ when Vijayanagara had not yet been built.
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¹ E.C., X, Mb. 158, op. cit.
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² Rice, My. Ins., Intr., p. lxxxi, n.
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³ Sewell, For. Emp., pp. 10 n. (2). 300, n. (1).
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⁴ Butterworth-Chetty. Nellore Ins., I., p. 114.
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⁵ My. Arch. Report for 1911-2, p. 49. This record is of doubtful authenticity.
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⁶ E.C., VIII, Sb. 375, op. cit.
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⁷ Ibid., Sb. 103, p. 15.
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¹ E.C., VII, Ci. 28, p. 183.
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² E.C., VIII, Sb. 490, p. 82.
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³ E.C. V, Hn. 2, p. 2.
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⁴ My. Arch. Report for 1925, p. 74; E.C., XI, Cd. 2, p. 2; Heras, The Beginnings, p. 19, seq.
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With the foreigners, however, the name underwent a distortion. To the Muhammadans and to the Portuguese it was known as Bisnaga, Bijnagar, Beejanuggur, or Beejnuggur, Bidjanagar, and Bichenagar.⁵ It was further corrupted into Bizenegalia.⁶ Barbosa gives altogether a new name—the kingdom Narsinga (or Narsyngua),⁷ obviously called after the Emperor Nṛsiṃha (Sāḷuva).
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⁵ Sewell, For. Emp., p. 242, n. (1).
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⁶ Major, India, p. lxii.
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⁷ Barbosa, Dames, I, p. 201; II, p. 113.
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But the name given to it in A.D. 1368—the City of Victory—survived the fatal shock of A.D. 1565, and the capital of the monarchs was always called Vijaya whether at Ānegundi, Hampe, Chandragiri or Penu-goṇḍa.⁸
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⁸ Heras, Aravidu, p. 313. Vijayanagara originally was not the same as Hastināvati or Hosapaṭṭaṇa. In the epigraph mentioning the religious settlement between the Jains and the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, Ānegundi and Hosapaṭṭaṇa are mentioned separately. E.C., IX, Ma. 18, p. 53. Vijayanagara was not Hastināvati since in A.D. 1382, Vijayanagara is mentioned first and then Hastināvati. Rice, My. Ins., p. 269. B.A.S.