Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c17.s3.t2.75

v2.c17.s3.t2.75

These instances of aristocratic arrogance do not, however, eclipse the unfeigned endearment of the larger masses of people throughout the history of Vijayanagara. What exactly was in the minds of the parents and their children in those days, how deeply the former loved the latter, and what delight the young folk gave to their elders cannot unfortunately be determined from any contemporary record. But if it is true that in A. D. 1720, the tenderness of the parents towards their children, according to the evidence of a Jesuit priest, was a marked feature of the social life of the people; if it is allowed that that was a great heritage which the people of Vijayanagara left behind them; and if we realize that the region where the Hindu Empire came into being was Karṇāṭaka, then, we may be permitted to complete the picture of a Hindu home of the mediæval times by listening to a poet who, although he belongs to post-Vijayanagara days, has given us a description of the domestic circle which is as true of the times in which he lived as it is of those of Vijayanagara and of our own. This is how Lakṣmīśa depicts the joy which a child radiates in a Hindu household: