Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s1.70

v2.c18.s1.70

If the Vijayanagara monarchs planned for the wiping out of the Kurumbar chiefs in the Tamil land, they must also have done the same in the Karṇāṭaka where, as we related in an earlier connection, there were the Bēḍars and the other tribes of the Male-rājya, who gave infinite trouble to the Government. All the traditional evidence we have cited above goes to prove that the Hindu State was benevolent towards the agriculturists (the Vēḷāḷers and the Vaṇṇiyars); that these, especially the Vēḷāḷers, were the traditional enemies of the Kurumbars whom they had supplanted in the Tamil land; and that the Vijayanagara Government by siding with the Vēḷāḷers and other agricultural sections of the people, launched forth a policy of breaking the power of the Kurumbars, especially in the Karṇāṭaka, since their strongholds in the Tamil country had already been destroyed by Adoṇḍai Chakravarti and Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya himself.