Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c19.s1.2

v2.c19.s1.2

Like the King, the Brahman, too, suffered decline as regards the unassailable position he had taken in the classical times. The earlier writers maintained that the Brahman preceded the Kshatriya,—that is to say, they analysed the question of the relative position which the king and the priest occupied in Hindu society. While some canonists were constrained to give the priest the pre-eminent place in Hindu society, to endow him with divinity, and to bestow on him certain privileges, like those relating to the inviolability of his person and of his property, others were inclined to give him a rank equal to that of the Kshatriyas, and, in one famous instance, even to relegate him to a place of insignificance, at least so far as the elements that constituted sovereignty were concerned. The Vijayanagara monarchs showed the classical touch that marked their action by holding the Brahman in the highest esteem; but they revealed, at the same time, their essentially mediaeval nature by making him the servant of the State.