Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s1.49

v2.c18.s1.49

The great monarch does not speak, it is true, of the barbers and the Kurumbars in his maxims. Nevertheless the spirit of his broad-minded policy is significant in the light of the events that followed soon after. The most numerous concessions which the barbers received fall within the reign of Sadāśiva Rāya. It is not unreasonable to suppose that as a result of the policy of conciliation inaugurated by Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya, the State must have set itself to the task of winning over the tribes; and that in the realization of their object, which may have been only towards the end of Achyuta Rāya's reign, they may have received some aid from the barbers. Now this conjecture of ours presupposes three considerations: the marked tendency which the Government showed to the Kurumbars (or Kurubars) after the times of Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya; the hereditary enmity of the Kurumbars and the barbers; and, finally, the importance of the Kurumbars in the areas which we have associated with the barbers above.