Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c20.s2.15

v2.c20.s2.15

Women in southern India could equally well carry on the administrative work of religious institutions. We gather this from a stone inscription dated A.D. 1255 which deals with the activities of a great merchant named Kuñje Seṭṭi and his family, in the times of the Hoysala king Sōmēśvara Dēva. One of the relations of Kuñje Seṭṭi was Kaṇḍanambi Seṭṭi, who made over all the lands which he had received as a gift from all the Brahmans of the Dāmōdara agrahāra, also called Nāgarahaḷḷi, to the temple of the god Kuñjēśvara, evidently of the same agrahāra. "And his daughter the Gaṇa-Kumāri⁴ Chandavve he made the proprietress (oḍeyalu) of the temple, for carrying out the ceremonies, and granted her hombaḷi land, with pouring of water in the presence of the god Kuñjēśvara, and in the presence of Rudraśakti, the rāja-guru of Dōrasamudra the capital of Tribhuvana, and in the presence of the Kampaṇāchārya of the 120 temple priests (sthānikaru), and of numberless mātra-gaṇagaḷu and in the presence of all the subjects, farmers and priests of the two Muttana-Hosavūr". That this appointment had to receive the confirmation of the prominent people of the agrahāra is clear from the following lines of the same inscription. "And that rāja-guru Rudra-śakti-dēva, the 120 temple priests, and Māda-Jiya of Arasiyakere, the Kaṃpaṇāchāri (capital) (rājadhāni), with other Jiyas (named), and numberless mahā-gaṇagaḷu uniting bound upon that Chandvve the vibhūti-paṭṭa, or crown of authority, and giving her the rank or place of a Gaṇa-kumāri," granted to her some specified dues in perpetuity.¹