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Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s2.t5: E. Miscellaneous Regulations

Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s2.t5

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E. Miscellaneous Regulations

v2.c21.s2.t5.1

We may add a few more notices on the subject before we proceed to deal with orthodoxy in Vijayanagara. These concern washermen and dancing-girls. An inscription "of a peculiar and confused character" with an unintelligible date which has been assigned by Rice to about A.D. 1700, describes privileges to which washermen were entitled. Although this inscription is of doubtful authenticity, yet it contains the details about washermen who were to "be fed and given betel and nut in every house in due order from left to right, and that whoever disobeys this should be excommunicated".¹ A stone inscription dated A.D. 1356 relates that "among the dancing-girls of the temple (at Tēkkal), Malaiyāttai Śrīraṅga Nāyakiyār Māṇikkam, daughter of Seṇḍikkā-dēvi, was granted the first turn in the temple of Aruḷāla-nādan, and certain lands (specified), and her sister Varadi, the first turn in the temple of the consort of the above god and certain lands".² This epigraph proves that the pre-Vijayanagara custom of entertaining dēvadāsīs in temples continued under the mediaeval monarchs, and that etiquette governed even the trivial details of temple ceremonials.³

v2.c21.s2.t5.2

¹ E.C., IX, Kn. 89. p. 132, and ibid., n. (1); see also Kn. 90, pp. 132, 133, n. (1).

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² E.C., X, Mr. 21, p. 161.

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³ As regards etiquette after dinner, see Lakshmīśa, Jaimini Bhārata, v. 34, p. 122 (Sanderson); for offering the tambulam, see Brown, The Rojas, p. 7; on etiquette while speaking, Vemaṇa, Verses, Bk. III., vv. 107-8, p. 123, (Brown).

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