Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s2.t3.1

v2.c18.s2.t3.1

The earliest mention of the two classes in Vijayanagara history is in the reign of Kampaṇa Oḍeyar, son of Bukka I. The inscription, which is dated A. D. 1362, deals with the joint activities of all the farmers and subjects of the great Kayivāra-nāḍu, and all (of both sects) of Nānā-Dēśis in Pekkuṇḍra, and of the 18 castes, in connection with the establishment of a fair at Kayivāra.² From the use of the phrase "Śrīvaishṇavas of the Eighteen Districts" and the "sons of forty-eight generations", used in the famous inscription dated A. D. 1368³, we may infer that both the Jainas and the Śrīvaishṇavas came under the general designation of the Vaḷaṅgai and Iḍaṅgai classes. An epigraph of about the same date (? A. D. 1369) ends with an incomplete imprecation—"whoso of the eighteen castes..."⁴ A record dated only in the cyclic year Duṇdubhi but assignable to the Śaka year 1305 (A. D. 1383-4) refers to a fight between the Right Hand and Left Hand Sections which lasted for four years.⁵ By order of Mallaṇa Oḍeyar, as related in an inscription dated in the cyclic year Dhātṛi (Śaka 1319=A.D. 1397-8), a gift of the taxes payable by the eighteen professional castes (paṭṭaḍai) of Paḍi-Tiruvallidāyam, was made to the temple of Tiruvallidāya-muḍaiya-Nāyaṉār.¹ We are told in a record dated Śaka 1371 (A. D. 1448-9) that Paḍaiviḍu belonged to Toṇḍaimaṇḍala of the Right Hand and Left Hand sections.² The 947 families of the *hāṇes*, mentioned in an inscription of A. D. 1455 of Maṇivaḷḷi, Honnāvūru, etc., evidently refer to the subdivisions of the Vaḷangai and Iḍangai classes in the Karṇāṭaka.³ The *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara* Rāmaya Dēva, with certain *gauḍas* (named), in about A. D. 1528, made a grant of land (specified), to the *guru* of the Right Hand sect, the Eḍiyūr daṇḍi, Viraṇṇa Oḍeyar.⁴ An inscription of the times of Achyuta Rāya, dated wrongly in Śaka 1554 (for 1454), Naṅdana, informs us that the Vaḷangai and the Iḍangai divisions comprised ninety-eight castes, and that an agreement was made among the weavers to contribute some money for the maintenance of a *maṭha*.⁵ As remarked elsewhere, in A. D. 1535, in the reign of the same monarch, his household treasurer Rāmappayya remitted the marriage tax "to every one of the eighteen castes" in the Būdihāḷa-sime.⁶ The 101 families of the eighteen castes are mentioned in a record dated A. D. 1589.⁷