Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s2.t4.3

v2.c21.s2.t4.3

The names of the Sālu-mūles, the elders, and the other prominent classes are also associated with an interesting public ceremony in connection with what was known as placing the vajra-bayasaṇige. This was an ancient custom of conducting public work, and was very common during Hoysala times. The Mamdāpur inscription of the Yādava king Kanhara, dated Śaka 1172 (A.D. 1250), informs us that "the five hundred Svāmis of the blest Ayyāvaḷe" and the Vīra Baṇañjas of the immemorial Kuṛumbeṭṭa in the Kūṇḍi Three-Thousand, granted certain tolls for the benefit of the three-turreted temple called the Trikūṭa-prasāda of the same town. On this occasion Kalidēva Seṭṭi, "the emperor of the community," was seated in the vajra-bayasaṇige in......of the immemorial Baṇañju town in Kuṛumbeṭṭa.² An inscription dated only in the cyclic year Parābhava, but assignable to the year A.D. 1306, tell us that the possessor of all titles, the mahā-gaṇas including Nandinātha and Virabhadra and the chief men of Hoyisaṇa-nāḍu, Kongu-nāḍu and other eighteen districts, having placed the diamond (?) bayisaṇige on the ground, assembled below the banian tree at the northern gate of Hosahoḷalu, and that in their presence all mahājanas of Hosahoḷalu, which was a portion of the immemorial agrahāra Rāyasamudra, the great Minister Mādigedēva Daṇṇāyaka's sēnabōva Paduvaṇṇa's balumanusa (? agent)³ Paṇḍāri Dēva, who was the officer of Hosahoḷalu, the Superintendent Kāvaṇa, Kētayya's son Huligeredēva, the mahājanas of Hoysana-nāḍu, and others (named), made a grant of land to Sōmayya to provide for the offerings of the god Sōmanatha of the mūlasthāna in the north-east set up with the consent of the mahājanas.¹