Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c9.s5.11

v1.c9.s5.11

We may now see whether the capital possessed another requisite—that relating to forests and shrubs, which is important in the secular life of the people. The impression that may have been created while reading the earlier pages about the dearth of a vigorous and natural growth of plant life in the capital, will be dispelled when we shall presently cite the evidence from travellers testifying to the successful endeavours made by the people to fill the city with large stores of grain and food. It is true that as regards birds and animals, the capital was less supplied with these than the other parts of the Empire, which teemed with them. But about the supply of grains and grasses in the city—in other words, about the general condition of pasturage, the following remarks from Paes, we may be permitted to repeat, may be recounted: "For the state of this city is not like that of other cities, which often fail of supplies and provisions, for in this one everything abounds; and also the quantity of butter and oil sold every day, that is a thing I cannot refrain from mentioning; and as for the rearing of cows and buffaloes which goes on in this city, there is so much that you will go very far before you have another like it".⁵ While Paes is not very explicit about the existence of forests in the immediate vicinity of the capital, another traveller, Nikitin, tells us briefly something about this trifling detail: "This vast city (which he calls Bichenegher) is surrounded by three forts, and intersected by a river, bordering on one side on a dreadful jungel, on the other on a dale; a wonderful place, and to any place convenient".⁶