Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c9.s5.110

v1.c9.s5.110

Tirumala evidently was gathering strength for another conflict with the enemy. But the City of Victory could not rejuvenate Hindu life after the fatal disaster of Rākshasa-Tangadi. Arrangements were made to evacuate it. ". . . the Natives in three days' time", writes Faria y Sousa, "had carried One Thousand Five Hundred and Fifty Elephants loaded with Money and Jewels, worth above One Hundred Millions of Gold and the Royal Chair (i.e., the famous Diamond-throne) for great Days that could not be valued".² This was the time when "after the departure of the Empire and the nobility from the capital", when there was "no garrison" "within its walls to defend it against any attack", that the "Bedues", who, according to Couto, "are jungle people", "pounced down on the helpless city, and in six different attacks looted all its houses, carrying away numberless precious things left by the nobles in their hasty flight".¹ These Bedues could only have been the Bēḍars whom Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya had tried to win over and conciliate by his generous policy. And it is these same Bedues to whom Caesar Frederick evidently refers in the following words: "For it was necessarie to rest there (i.e., in the City) untill all the wayes were cleere of Theeves, which that time arranged up and downe".²