Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s1.t3: C. Excommunication

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s1.t3

Language
English

C. Excommunication

v2.c21.s1.t3.1

To the orthodox minds of the mediaeval ages excommunication was a potent weapon of exercising the authority of social groups. In one of its aspects it is related to the problem of outcastes; and this again is allied to that of untouchability which we briefly alluded to while dealing with the social issues which the people of Vijayanagara had to solve. Before we enumerate the different kinds of excommunication in Vijayanagara, we may acquaint ourselves with the views of classical canonists on the subject.

v2.c21.s1.t3.2

Manu has laid down specific regulations dealing with the question of excommunication from the caste.² "A Brāhmaṇa who unintentionally approaches a woman of the Chāṇḍāla or of (any other) very low caste, who eats (the food of such persons) and accepts (presents from them) becomes an outcaste; but (if he does it intentionally), he becomes their equal."³ Then again: "He who associates with an outcaste, himself becomes an outcaste after a year, not by sacrificing for him, teaching him, or forming a matrimonial alliance with him, but using the same carriage or seat, or by eating with him."⁴

v2.c21.s1.t3.3

² As regards Manu's regulations on outcastes, see *Manu*, III, 150, 157, pp. 103, 104-5; IV, 79. 213, pp. 141, 163; IX, 238-9, p. 384; XI, 185, 190, pp. 468-9.

v2.c21.s1.t3.4

³ *Ibid.*, XI, 176, pp. 466-7.

v2.c21.s1.t3.5

⁴ *Ibid.*, XI, 181, pp. 467-8.

v2.c21.s1.t3.6

The penances meant for those who desired to atone for their sins are thus given: "He who also associates with any one of those outcastes, must perform, in order to atone for (such) intercourse, the penance prescribed for that sinner. The Sapiṇḍas and Samānōdakas of an outcaste must offer (a libation of) water (to him, as if he were dead), outside (the village) on an inauspicious day, in the evening, and in the presence of the relatives, officiating priests, and teachers. A female slave shall upset with her foot a pot filled with water, as if it were for a dead person; (his Sapiṇḍas) as well as the Samānōdakas shall be impure for a day and night; But thenceforward it shall be forbidden to converse with him, to sit with him, to give him a share of the inheritance, and to hold with him such intercourse as is usual among men; And (if he be the eldest) his right of primogeniture shall be withheld and the additional share, due to the eldest son; and in his stead a younger brother, excelling in virtue, shall obtain the share of the eldest.”¹

v2.c21.s1.t3.7

¹ Manu, XI, 182-6, pp. 468-9. See also ibid., 187-92, 196-7, pp. 469-70, for the penance by which such an outcaste may regain his original status.

v2.c21.s1.t3.8

According to Gautama even a father could be excommunicated, if he had committed certain grave crimes. “Let him cast off a father who assassinates a king, who sacrifices for Śūdras, who sacrifices for his own sake (accepting) money from Śūdras, who divulges the Veda (to persons not authorised to study it), who kills a learned Brāhmaṇa, who dwells with men of the lowest casts, or (cohabits) with a female of one of the lowest casts.”²

v2.c21.s1.t3.9

² Gautama, XX, 1, pp. 277-8. Ibid., 2-9, pp. 278-9 for the penances meant for such a sinner. Cf. Vasiṣṭha, XV, 11-2, p. 77; Baudhāyana, II, 1, 36, p. 216.

v2.c21.s1.t3.10

With these regulations of the lawgivers before us, we may now ascertain the nature and kinds of social punishment under Vijayanagara. All classes of people including Brahmans were liable to excommunication. The members of the priestly class were especially punished if they violated the rules of their caste or those of a communal grant, and sold the shares which they owned in the village to Śūdras. Those who refused the consecrated food of a god were also declared outcastes. An undated inscription, assigned to about A. D. 1568, clearly says that “the Brahman who refuses the consecrated food (artha-prasādavannu) of the god Tirumala’s tirth is a Caṇḍāla (or outcaste).¹ In the grant dated A. D. 1474 recording the gift of the villages Ālugōḍu and Nuggilūr situated in Gayā-tristhāna, by king Virūpāksha to Kṛishṇa Bhaṭṭa, it is said that “If any among the shareholders mortgage or sell his share to Śūdras, he shall be put out of the Brahman community, and such share shall not belong to this place (*i-vṛillimaṅtaroḷage ār obaru tamma tamma vṛilliyanu śūdrarugaḷige ādhi-krayava māḍidare avaru brāhmaṇikege horagu ā-vṛittigaḷu i-taṇḍake salau*).² All the Brahmans (endowed with many titles) of the all-honoured great *agrahāra*, the seat of all learning, Prasanna-Vijayapura, made an endowment for the support of the dancing-girls of the temple of the god Rāmanātha, in A. D. 1372, and lest it should be violated by members of their own community, laid down the following rule: “Whatever Brahmans oppose this, are out of the Brahman community and banished from the village” (*i-dharmakke āva brāhmaru vighanava māḍidavaru brāhmarige horagu grāma-bahishkri-taru*).³ Three kinds of social ostracism are mentioned in A. D. 1519 and A. D. 1537. These refer to the Vīraśaivas. The offenders were be declared outcasts to the *mahā-mah-allu* or the holy assembly of the Vīraśaivas; outcasts in respect of *vibhūti* (or sacred ashes) and *rudrākshi*; and outcasts both in this world and the next.⁴

v2.c21.s1.t3.11

¹ E. C., XI, Hr. 42, p. 109, text, p. 303.

v2.c21.s1.t3.12

² E. C., III, Ml. 121, p. 68, text, p. 909. See also *Ep. Report* for 1916, p. 140, op. cit.

v2.c21.s1.t3.13

³ E. C., IV, Gu. 32, p. 41, text, p. 104.

v2.c21.s1.t3.14

⁴ *My. Arch. Report* for 1920, pp. 42-3. Cf. Imprecations against the Liṅgavantas and Nāmadhāris in A. D. 1598: *Liṅgavantan ādava aḷupidare ā-Koppa-āyadali liṅga jaṅgu....pāpake hōha vibhūti-rudrāk-shige horagu nāmadhāri āgi ādava-i-dharmake aḷupidare Tirupati Śri-raṅga-Vishṇu-Kanchili svāmi-sēve aḷida pāpake hōharu*. E. C., VI, Kp. 50, text, p. 332.

v2.c21.s1.t3.15

The other instances of excommunication refer to the commercial and agricultural castes. An effaced inscription in Tamil dated A.D. 1369 mentions the grants made by Śūḍaiya... and Poḷu..., who were the servants of Ilakkapper, the betel-pouch bearer of Kampaṇa Oḍeyar. In this grant it is recorded that the Nāgalatoṭṭi (caste) of Periya Śattavāram and the Puvatoṭṭi and other castes of Piḷaguvllai granted one paṇam for every village (in Tēkaḷ). They decided thus : "He who does not pay shall be an outcaste from the nāḍu, the assembly and the Pañchāḷattār.¹ In the same year, the Toṭṭigans as related elsewhere, resolved to do the following : "We of the Toṭṭigan caste in Pulliyur-nāḍu granted one paṇam for every village situated in the eighteen nāḍus...He who does not pay shall be an outcaste from the nāḍu, the assembly, the Pañchāḷam, the Parai, and the eighteen nāḍus". (Kuḍādavan nāṭṭukkum palarukkum Pañjāḷattukkum paraḷykum padineṭṭu-naṭṭukkum purambu.)² The Pañchāḷas of Tērakaṇāmbi and of various other places (named), made provision for the dancing-girls of the god Rāmanātha of Vijayapura, and especially for the livelihood of the dancing-girl Kētavve. This grant ends in the following manner : "Whoso destroys this grant is put out of the Pañchāḷas, out of his trade, out of the assembly and the nad". (I-dharmmavanu āvan obba aḷupidavanu Pañchāḷakke horagu āhaḷakke horagu samayakkevū nāḍigu horagu.)³

v2.c21.s1.t3.16

¹ E. C., IX, Ht. 103, p. 100, text, p. 51.

v2.c21.s1.t3.17

² Ibid., Ht. 103 (a), p. 100, text, ibid.

v2.c21.s1.t3.18

³ E. C., IV, Gu. 34, p. 42, text, p. 106.

v2.c21.s1.t3.19

Two inscriptions dated in Kollam 555 (A. D. 1379-80) and Kollam 591 (A. D. 1415-16) respectively, refer to the social legislation among the Vēḷāḷers and the members of the Veḷḷai-Nāḍar community. It is said that the former ostracized the latter who earned their livelihood generally by service. A few Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs having, in their capacity as accountants, agents, etc., committed some unspecified offence against their employers of the Vēḷāḷer community, the general public, the heads of the families, accountants and all other members of this latter community in the district, met together and resolved that the three specified offenders be killed, and that it was beneath the dignity of the community to employ in future any Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs even in cooly service, much less to permit them to be agents, accountants, and officials. Another record dated in Kollam 628 (A. D. 1452-3) relates that further restrictions were added to those already registered. The Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs were not to take girls in marriage from the Tamil villagers, nor could they take up service in the Tamil country. Twenty-three specified offenders of the Veḷḷai-Nāḍār community were to be killed whenever they were found. No Veḷḷai-Nāḍār was to be permitted in future to enter the Tamil districts.¹

v2.c21.s1.t3.20

¹ *Ep. Report* for 1917, p. 134.

v2.c21.s1.t3.21

The measures passed by the Veḷḷāḷers were stringent, and their attitude towards the members of the Veḷḷai-Nāḍār community uncompromising. Tamil people, on the whole, as we have seen on many occasions, were loath to take the life of a guilty person, even when he was accused of homicide (not amounting to murder). When such had been the precedent set in the early ages, this action of the Veḷḷāḷers is inexplicable. The records do not state the crimes which the Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs committed. Whether the severity of the sentence passed on the Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs was due to the gruesome nature of the offence committed by them, or to the inveterate communal hatred which the Tamil Veḷḷāḷers bore—as they do entertain now for the Nāḍārs or Śāṇārs in the Tinnevelly district²—towards the latter, who may have been, as is suggested, of non-Tamil origin, cannot be determined. And what is equally difficult to explain is why the king or the provincial ruler "did not interfere in such a social legislation even when it concerned breach of public peace and ultimate loss of lives."³ The epigraphs are silent on this point; but it may as well be that the Veḷḷāḷers had to secure the sanction of the State officials before they could finally punish the Veḷḷai-Nāḍārs. If, as we shall see in the following instances, even the Brahmans of an *agrahāra* could not ostracize one of their own community without the mediation of the officers of the Vijayanagara viceroy, it is evident that the agricultural classes, such as the Veḷḷāḷers essentially were, would not have been given unlimited powers in social matters, especially when it concerned the lives of the offenders.

v2.c21.s1.t3.22

² *Ibid.*

v2.c21.s1.t3.23

³ *Ibid.*

v2.c21.s1.t3.24

Whether our assumption is valid or not there is an instance of State interference in social matters concerning Brahmans. According to an epigraph dated Śaka 1466 (A. D. 1544-5) a Brāhmaṇa of Chēramahādēvi (mod. Shermādēvi in the Ambāsamudram tāluka) having fallen from his original high caste, his land and house-site were confiscated to the local temple of Tiruvēṅgaḷanātha, with the income whereof four measures of rice were cooked for the god's offerings and used for feeding four Brahmans. The adjudging body that presided over this case of caste degradation was made up of the two local agents of Viṭhṭhala, the *Mahamaṇḍalēśvara*..., Nārāyaṇa Chauhattamalla Raṇavijaya Velumapāṭi Veṅgaḷa-Dēva Mahārāya, the *karyakarta* (Agent) of (Viṭhṭhala's younger brother) Rāma Rāja Chinna Timmaya Dēva Mahārāja, the *karaṇam*, and the great learned men (*vidvān-mahājanas*) of Chēramahādēvi, Elāpuram, and Narasāpuram.¹

v2.c21.s1.t3.25

¹ 718 of 1916; *Ep. Report* for 1917, p. 130.

v2.c21.s1.t3.26

The concern which the rulers of Vijayanagara felt as maintainers of the *varṇāśrama-dharma* is also seen to some extent in an epigraph dated A. D. 1548-9 which records that barbers were exempted from fines levied for breaking rules of caste (*kulsiddhayālu*), marriage fees, presents, etc.² If we turn to the western parts of the Empire, we find there too the importance of the State in social matters. Here it seems that a person, who was found guilty of a social crime, lost his estates obviously at the instance of the Government. It is only in this light that we can explain the details of a record dated A. D. 1598 which mentions a grant made by Bhairarasa Oḍeyar to the temple of the god Pārīśvanātha. The epigraph relates that certain areca gardens were assigned to the services of the god. Among those was one which "had been forfeited by loss of caste owing to some crime" which is not specified (*Molegāra-gauḍaninda Suligōḍu Mārappage dhāreneradu biṭṭa* Karigarisina-grāmdalli āva-jātigeṭṭu aparādha-māḍida sambandha).¹

v2.c21.s1.t3.27

² Butterworth-Chetty, *Nellore Ins.*, I, p. 217.

v2.c21.s1.t3.28

¹ E. C., VI, Kp. 50, p. 86, text, p. 332, op. cit. For some aspects of the question of excommunication from and readmission into caste, see Ray, J. B. O. R. S., XIII pp. 162, 164-6, 168. On the interesting correspondence between two anonymous Sanskrit pandits on caste, as given in the Drāviḍāchārapramāṇasaṅgraha, read My. Arch. Report for 1926, pp. 28—83.

Linked texts (5)