Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s1.38

v2.c18.s1.38

A less important community which, as we related above,² rose in the royal estimation towards the middle of the sixteenth century was that of the barbers. We may be permitted to recount one or two facts already given in connection with these people. It appears that about A.D. 1547-48, some heads of the barber community made a request, the nature of which is not specified anywhere, to the Emperor Sadāśiva. This seems to have been the result of their skill having been recognized by the great Regent in A.D. 1545. At least so we are told in the inscriptions which give us these details. In that year Rāma Rāja Oḍeyar, being pleased with the barber Koṇḍōja, exempted the barbers of the country from certain taxes.³ The inscriptions of the next year (A.D. 1546) merely mention that the barbers of the whole country secured this privilege.⁴ If this were really so, why they should have made a petition to Rāma Rāja in A.D. 1555, or "propitiated the Emperor" in A.D. 1547, cannot be understood. In the former year we are told that "Timmōja-Koṇḍōja having made application to Rāma-Rājayya, and the latter having made application to Sadāśiva-Dēva-Mahārāya, the Rāya remitted to the barber Timmōja-Koṇḍōja and his family throughout the four boundaries of the kingdom he ruled," certain specified taxes.¹ An inscription of A.D. 1547-48 relates that Timmōja, Koṇḍōja and Bhadri of (the town of) Bādāvi, having propitiated the king (*rāyara mech[chhi]si bēḍikoṇḍa sammam [bam]dha*) that ruler (Sadāśiva Rāya), " in connection with a request they had made ", granted them a *mānya* land.² Whatever the nature of the application may have been, there cannot be a doubt that great concessions were shown to the barber community as a whole.