Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s2.t2.7

v2.c18.s2.t2.7

gaṇḍu—have caused śāsanam to be engraved on stone to the effect that...”. The details that follow dwell at great length on the solidarity of the members of the Right Hand division, and on the social and customary sanction which these two classes had secured in the eleventh century.¹ A record of Rājēndra Chōḷa Dēva I., (A. D. 1101-41), mentions the Vaḷaṅgai classes.² Some grant was made by the representatives of the eighteen castes in A. D. 1189 in the times of the Hoysala king Vira Baḷḷāḷa.³ A record dated about A. D. 1206 informs us that Baḷava (Right) Jakkaiya’s (son) Eḍava (Left) Jakkiya was ruling in Diḍuga.⁴ Kāchi Dēva, a feudatory of Narasiṁha II, is said to have been the sēnā-nāyaka of the Left Hand section in an inscription dated A. D. 1224.⁵ “The eighteen castes with both sects of Nānā-Dēśis at their head”, as related in a record dated A. D. 1280, “having placed the diamond bayasaṇige in Harihara and sat down”, granted certain specified dues for the festival of the god of that town.⁶ In the thirteenth century, in the reign of Kuḷōttuṅga III, certain Śrutimāns of Uṛṛattūr, held a meeting in the maṇḍapa called Uttamaśōḷaṇ of the Siddha-ratnēśvara temple of Uttattūr, Trichinopoly district, on behalf of the ninety-eight subdivisions of the Iḍaṅgai classes.⁷ The eighteen samayas are mentioned in a record dated A. D. 1330.⁸