Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s3.t6: F. Fasts and Feasts
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s3.t6
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F. Fasts and Feasts
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In the observance of fasts and feasts, too, we have evidence of the devoutness with which monarchs as well as people clung to classical precepts. To foreigners this was familiar. Thus Paes relates: "You should know that among these heathen there are days when they celebrate their feasts as with us; and they have their days of fasting, where all day they eat nothing and eat only at midnight."³ We can gather more details from epigraphical records on this subject. The Vijayanagara monarchs certainly did not introduce any innovation in this matter. In earlier times as well it was not uncommon for high officials to be strictly orthodox in their daily avocations. Thus, according to an epigraph dated A.D. 1218, in the times of the Hoysala king Ballāḷa II, "the Sāvāsi official, great master of the robes, (with praise) bathing and sacrificing at dawn and observing both ēkādaśis, worshipper of the feet of Brahmans and gurus, worshipper of the divine lotus-plant of the god Jaitanātha,—Jaya-Bhaṭṭayya Nāyaka having set up the god Jaita-Nārāyaṇa", received from the Hoysala king Ballāḷa Dēva a grant of forty gadyāṇa.¹
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³ Sewell, For. Emp., p. 262.
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¹ E. C., V, P. I., Hn. 61, p. 18.
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In Vijayanagara times princes as well as people celebrated the vratas and sacrifices enjoined in the Hindu scriptures. An inscription dated A. D. 1356 relates that sometime after the illustrious minister Sōmapa had built the temple of Srī-Sōmanātha, "in observance of the Monday-vow (sōmavāra-vrata), the king (Bukka's son Kumāra Kampaṇa) paid a visit to " the most blessed god Sōmanātha ", and made grant of a large village for the god. Kumāra Kampaṇa, according to the same record, was a " unique treasure of music, a tree of paradise to the learned ", and was " intent on establishing dharma."²
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² E. C., X, Kl. 222, p. 64.
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Bukka I's famous minister was Mādhava, who was " renowned in the world for his good qualities ". This great man, who was " invested with authority for punishing the evil ", " with Brahman purity and Kashtra victorious power for protecting the earth from fear ", is highly praised in an epigraph dated A. D. 1368. He was " an astonishing expert in policy, like Bṛihaspati in exceeding wisdom ", " always composing poetry which gives new pleasure to the minds of all "; and because he " cleared and made plain the ruined path of the upanishads, which was overgrown and dangerous from the serpents the proud advocates of evil doctrines ", " was praised by the wise as the guru who established the path of the upanishads ". Although he had " accepted the government as far as the Western ocean ", yet " in order to have an oversight of that kingdom without trouble, on the advice of the Śiva guru Kāsivilāsa Kriyāśakti, he worshipped in the manner of the Saivāmnāya the god of gods embodied in his own favourite linga, Triyambakanātha, by means of daily special ceremonies and by a number of rites and practices. Then at a certain time (specified) in order to fulfil the great Śaiva vow which he had commenced with special rites a year before as directed in the Śiva sandhyā, desiring to make the donations required to complete that great vow", he secured permission from his lord Bukka Rāja, and bought the village of Muchchuṇḍi, in his own Eighteen-maṇḍala country "with the knowlege of the authorities of the maṇḍala". He gave it as well as two other hamlets situated in Nāgarakhaṇḍa, to learned Brahmans, renaming it "Vidyēśvarapura, after the eight Vidyēśvaras who were the objects of adoration of his vow."
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We may here also observe the qualifications of the donees. They were "like incarnations of Vidyēśvara, pre-eminent by their virtues and the country of their birth, travellers to the farthest point of the Chārāyaṇīya-aticharaṇāmnāya, daily observers of all the rites appointed in the pure Śivāmnāya, ever devoted to the worship of the Aṣṭa-mūrti, Kāśmīr-Brahmans".¹
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¹ E. C., VII Sk. 281, pp. 146-7. op. cit. These Kashmere Brahmans may have been of the same stock as the Sārasvata Brahmans. If the relationship between these Kashmere Brahmans, their antecedents, and the events that led to the migration of earlier chieftains from Kashmere—like Jaya Bhaṭṭaya Nāyaka who, in the epigraph already cited, is called "a rājā by right of the Kāśmīra country"—could be traced, then it is not improbable that the community which has been known as the Sārasvatas may have come to Karṇāṭaka along the western coast at the beginning of the thirteenth century A. D. In this connection I may add that the Mādhava of this inscription has been identified with Mādhava Vidyāraṇya. See M. Srinivasa Rao—Krishnaswamy Aiyar, *Panchadaśī* of Vidyāraṇya (with Eng. Trans. notes etc.) Intro., p. xl. The editors of this work do not believe that Mādhava was ever a *sanyasin*. "In all extant inscriptions Mādhava is known as Mādhava Amātya, Mantri or Sachiva and never Achārya or Vidyāraṇya." Ibid. p. xiii.
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Another instance of a devout Hindu may be mentioned. Śravakratu Sōmanātha Dikshita, son of Dēvaru Sōmayāji, of the Kāśyapa-gōtra and Ṛik-śākhā, is described in A. D. 1418 as "the performer of the yājapēya, sarvatōmukha and pratiasanta sacrifices".²
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² E. C., X, Bg. 17, 18, p. 233.