Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s3.t9: I. Obsequial Ceremonies
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c21.s3.t9
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I. Obsequial Ceremonies
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It is obvious that the Hindus and Jainas of Vijayanagara paid equal attention to the death ceremonies.³ The observations of Nuniz about the ceremonies among the Brahmans may be recalled in this connection. We have some more notices in inscriptions which are interesting. Saṅgama II made a grant of the village called Biṭruguṇṭa or Biṭṭarakuṇṭa to twenty-eight Brahmans on the anniversary of his father's death.⁴ One of the most prominent names among the royal *bhāṭs* is, as we have just remarked, that of Bācheyappa. "When that Bācheyappa, obtained supreme bliss (*i. e.*, died) his elder son Bukkaṇṇa, performing penance in (the presence of the god) Virūpāksha, sent his bones to Vāraṇāsi"¹. On Harihara Mahārāya II obtaining *nirvāṇa* "in the year Tāraṇa, in the rainy season, in the month Nabhasya (Bhādrapada), the tenth *tithi*, on Sunday (=31st August 1404) under the constellation Pitṛi (Magha)", his learned Minister Viṭhṭhaṇṇa Oḍeyar, who was governing the Āraga kingdom, granted the village called Muktahariharapura to certain Brahmans to commemorate the death of the king.²
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³ For a detailed account, *Grihya Sūtras*, (*Śaṅkhāyana*) P.I, 4, Adhāya khaṇḍa 1, p. 106 seq; Barnett, *Hinduism*, pp. 52-3; Wilkins *Mod. Hind.* p. 439 seq.; Hemingway, *Tanjore Gaz.*, pp. 76-7.
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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, III, pp, 22-3, 27.
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¹ E. C., III, Ml. 21, p. 58, op. cit.
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² E. C., VIII, Tl. 129, pp. 188-9.
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We are to suppose that funeral obsequies were conducted in the orthodox manner on this occasion. From the following undated epigraph assigned to about the year A.D. 1500, it seems that women through their priests made offerings of a similar nature. Suguṭūr Chikka Tammaya Gauḍa's elder sister Halasa Rātama, "through her purōhita Kṛishṇa-bhaṭṭa Tirumala Sōmayāji, offered at the feet of the goddess in this southern Gayā *tilōdaka*, and *piṇḍa*, securing the reward of making the offering in Kāśi, Gayā and Prayāga, as declared by Vālmīki."³
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³ E. C., X., Mb. 76, p. 97.
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The *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara* Gava Rājaya, according to an epigraph dated A. D. 1571, performed the funeral rites for his father Veṅkaṭādri Rājaya, and granted "the village of Saulaṅga to Vijēndra Voḍeyar's Maṭha of the Ānegoṇḍi Maṭha", in order that merit might accrue to his father.⁴ Granting lands for charitable purposes in order to commemorate the death of parents or of the ruler was, therefore, a feature of Vijayanagara times. And as regards performing funeral rites, we may mention that on the death of Rāma Rāya on the battle-field of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi, his adopted son Ali ‘Ādil Shāh, according to the author of *Rāma Rāyana Bhaikhair*, sent the bones of the great Hindu ruler to Benares.⁵
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⁴ E. C., VII, Hl. 60, p. 172.
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⁵ Mack. Coll.
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Foreign travellers describe the funeral ceremonies of a class of people but with some inconsistency in their accounts. Barbosa, as we remarked in connection with the castes in Vijayanagara, gives a detailed account of the people who were "very like unto the Bramenes, who wear round their necks certain cords of twisted silk, from which hangs a cloth bag containing a stone" which they call Tambarane. These, as Dames rightly suggests, could only have been Lingāyats. Barbosa gives further an account of their funeral rites. "'Many of them are merchants and trade as well.' They marry only one wife, and when one of them dies the wife buries herself alive. They dig a great hole deep enough to come up to her neck, and place her in it alive, standing on her feet, and begin to shovel in the earth around her, trampling it down with their feet until she is covered up to the neck with well-trodden earth. Then they place a great stone over her, and there she stays alive and walled up in clay, and they carry out other ceremonies for her, (which would take too long to describe : a miserable and pitiful thing, making us consider what strength ambition and reputation have in this world, when they can induce these women to submit of their own will to such a horrible end, for nothing else than for honour and to be held in good repute, failing which they would be regarded as no longer alive)."'1 According to Barbosa, therefore, this was a custom among those people who wore the Tambarane round their necks—that is to say, the Jangamas or Lingāyats.
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Now to turn to Nuniz. This chronicler says the following in connection with sati : "This is the custom throughout all the country of the heathen, except with that caste of people called Telugus, amongst whom the wives are buried alive with their husbands when they die. These go with much pleasure to the pit, inside of which are made two seats of earth, one for him and one for her, and they place each one on his own seat and cover them in little by little till they are covered up ;
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¹ Barbosa, Dames, I, pp. 218-20; Stanley, pp. 94-5.
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and so the wife dies with her husband."¹ That Nuniz is positive about the name Telugu is clear from his earlier statement relating to them. "There is another class of men called Telumgalle; when these die their wives are buried alive with them."² There can be no doubt, therefore, that according to Nuniz the Telugus were addicted to this rite.
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¹ Sewell, For. Emp., p. 393.
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² Ibid., p. 390. Mr. Thompson accepts this blunder of Nuniz as a fact. According to him sati took the shape described by the Portuguese chronicler in the Telugu country. Suttee, p. 39.
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Caesar Frederick also observed this custom, but unlike Barbosa and Nuniz, this shrewd observer gives us one of the most gruesome accounts we have of the rite, without telling us anything about the name of the people among whom it was common. Caesar Frederick says: "Also in this Kingdome I have seene amongst the base sort of people this use and order, that the man being dead, hee is carried to the place where they will make his sepulcher, and setting him as it were upright, then commeth his wife before him on her knees, casting her armes about his necke, with embracing and clasping him, untill such time as the Masons have made a wall round about them, and when the wall is as high as their neckes, there commeth a man behind the woman and strangleth her: then when she is dead, the workmen finish the wall over their heads, and so they lie buried together." With Caesar Frederick it was "the base sort of people" among whom "this use and order" was found."³
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³ Caesar Frederick, Purchas, Pilgrims, X, p. 96.
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There is one more traveller who also witnessed this unfortunate custom. It was Gasparo Balbi who writes about the events of A. D. 1582 thus: "Without the Citie of Saint Thomas is another Citie environed with walls, made of earth, and inhabited with Gentiles Souldiers, whose Chieftaine is called Adicario (adhikāri ?), who hath power to execute justice. They observe the custome to burne their Dead in this Citie, as at Negapaton; but neere to this is a Citie called La Casta de gli Orefici, Goldsmith rowe; they have a custome when the Husband is dead, to make a pit in the earth, and there to place the dead corpse crosse-legged; and on the other side his living Wife in the same manner, and their kindred cast earth upon her pressing her downe, that shee may die also....”¹ Here we have the same practice current among the goldsmiths on the east coast.
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¹ Gasparo Balbi, *Purchas, Pilgrims*, p. 148.
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We may remark here that Metthwold, in his *Relations of Golconda*, speaks of it as having been common among the weaver caste in the kingdom.²
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² Metthwold, *Relations of Golconda*, p. 28, and p. 28, n. (3).
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We have to decide as to the people who thought it worthy to die in this manner. The travellers who noted the custom were certainly correct in their assertion that there was such a rite in the Vijayanagara Empire. But it cannot be maintained with Barbosa that it was prevalent among the Liṅgāyats, nor with Nuniz, among the Telugus. The evidence of inscriptions is more conclusive on this subject. The people who died in the manner related above were the Jainas, most of whom, as is well known, were merchants and traders like the Liṅgāyats. The popularity of this kind of death was due to the precedent set by famous Jaina teachers and influential Jaina nobles. We shall first give one or two examples of the death by *samādhi*, as they called it, among the humbler classes of the Jainas. These again were called Gauḍas. A record dated A. D. 1458 relates that Siriya Gauḍa of Kuppe died, and his wife Tangaṇṇa Gauḍi fell into the tomb along with him (*ātana kūḍe samādhiyana (n) u kūḍidaḷu*).³ Then again in A.D. 1465 Kavaḍi Bela Gauḍa's wife Lākhayi Herggaḍi entered into the linga (*surag oḍadu liṅgada oḷagādaḷu*).⁴ In about A.D. 1509 when Haraūr Chāuṇḍa Gauḍa's son Bomma Gauḍa went to *svarga*, his wife Bommi Gauḍi, sitting in the tomb (*samādhi kuḷitu*) also went to *svarga*.⁵
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³ *E. C.*, VIII., Sb. 496, p. 83.
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⁴ *Ibid.*, Sb. 524, p. 86.
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⁵ *Ibid.*, Sb. 165, p. 23.
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A rapid review of this rite will make it clear that it was an ancient custom in the Karṇāṭaka. The following account of entombment in the thirteenth century and after proves that Jaina ascetics as well as Jaina aristocrats had given prominence to the cruel custom. The epigraph describing it is dated A.D. 1274. Bāḷanchandra-paṇḍita-dēva, the beloved disciple of Māghnaṇḍi-bhaṭṭāraka-dēva, of the Śrī-Mūla-saṅgha, Dēśiya-gaṇa, Pustaka-gachchha, Koṇḍakuṇḍānvaya, Ingalēśvarabaḷi, Śrī-Samudāya, and "famous in the world for his teachings on penance, announced to the four castes saying 'at noon (on the date specified) I shall enter into the tomb', and commanding them saying, 'You should all obtain dharma: you must forgive me (or, I ask your forgiveness)'. Having performed all the rites of *sannyasana*, seated on the *palyankāsana* (or couch) praising the forms of the *pañcha-paramēṣṭi*,¹—in a manner that gained approval from his own and from other sects he suffered perfect entombment. All the Bhavyas (the blessed ones, that is, the Jains) of the royal city of Dōrasamudra, performing all the ceremonies suitable for the occasion, as a memorial for his departure (or death), made images of their guru and of the *pañcha-paramēṣṭi*, and set them up, extending his merit and fame.² This was the recognized mode of death among the Jaina gurus. Māgha Chandra Dēva, who is mentioned along with the renowned gurus Pārśva Dēva and Bāhubalivṛati, and whose death is recorded in an epigraph dated A.D. 1371, must have "obtained *mukti*" in a similar manner.³ Our assumption is proved by an epigraph of A.D. 1372 which informs us that Srutimunīśvara's disciple, Māgh-anaṇḍi Siddhānti Dēva, Srutakīrti Dēva, Munichandra Dēva, Bāhubali Dēva, Pārśva Dēva, Jinachandra Dēva, and one or two others whose names are effaced, "renouncing all, entered the tomb, and attained to the (exalted) state."⁴
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¹ *Pañcha-paramēṣṭi* or the five chiefly desired ones—the Arhantas, Siddhas, Achāryas, Upādhyāyas and Sādhus". Rice, E. C., V., P. I, p. 87, n. (2).
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² E. C., V., P. I., Bl. 131, p. 87.
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³ E. C., III, Nj. 43, p. 99.
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⁴ Ibid., Nj. 64, p. 101.
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The dismal details given by Caesar Frederick and Gasparo Balbi about the manner they "made a wall round about in a pit in the earth", may be contrasted with the following accounts of the death of a few Jainas in the latter half of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. A stone inscription, dated A.D. 1372, refers us to the reign of Vīra Bukka Rāya, when the rāja-guru, head of the Balatkāra-gaṇa, Simhanandi Āchārya's lay-disciple, Soraba Vīra Gauḍa's daughter, wife of the Āḷva-mahā-prabhu Tavanidhi Brahma, Lakshmī Bommakkā, with the rites of samādhi expired and went to svarga.¹ An effaced inscription assigned to about the year A.D. 1400 relates the following: "On a certain day Aruhat Paramesvara (? made known to) Munibhadra (vondānondu-dinam Aruhat-Paramēśvaraṁ Munibhadra ......Siriyanna......chintaneyaṁ māḷpa) that he would grant the happy state to Śiriyaṇṇa, who was a perfect lay-disciple. At the favourable time, when the rain of flowers was falling, and with a noise like thunder the sounds of great drums were rolling, (ghana-rava-bhēri-dundubhi mahā-murajaṁ bahu-vādya-ghōṣadiṁ) singing songs to himself, the sādhu Śiriyaṇṇa swiftly clung to the feet of Jina, never to leave him, —how fortunate was he."²
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¹ E. C., VIII., Sb. 199, pp. 31-2.
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² Ibid., Sb. 153, p. 22, P. II., pp. 65-6.
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Munibhadra Dēva, disciple of Chandrasēna Sūri of the line of Jinasēna and Virasēna of the Uddhura-vaṁśa, had the Hisugal basadi made, and the Mulugund Jinēndra temple extended. This is related in an inscription dated A.D. 1388. The epigraph continues to give the following information about him : "After the performance of penance, elucidating his chosen āgama, having driven away sin, Munibhadra Dēva was for long without anxiety. At length, having added to his virtue, Munibhadra Dēva becoming aware that his end was approaching, as the leaf of the lotus in the water casts off the drops, so having severed himself from all outward things, the great Munibhadra Dēva, practising the prescribed rites, prepared for the higher state, and quitting this life (on the date specified) with all the rites of *sannyasana*, through the tomb entered upon the enjoyment of eternal happiness."¹
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¹ E. C., VIII., Sb. 146, p. 21. ² Ibid., Sb. 261, p. 41. ³ Pimenta, Purchas, *Pilgrims*, X., p. 217.
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Another example of a lay Jaina dying in the orthodox manner is given in an epigraph dated A.D. 1408. This record tells us that Gōpa Mahāprabhu was the ruler of the town of Kuppaṭūr in Nāgarakhaṇḍa. He "shone as purified by Jina-dharma, his blameless career like steps to paradise". His son was called Śiriyaṇṇa. "Śiriyaṇṇa's son, the Male-nāḍ, *mahā-prabhu* Gōpaṇṇa, having enjoyed the society of his wives for many days, abandoned family pleasures, and (on the date specified) making gifts to Brahmans of gold, grain, land, cows and all the other gifts,—discarding all pleasures of the mind or the palate, repeating the praises and prayers of the Jina-dharma, taking the hand of the Mōksha-Lakshmi, he with great joy went to heaven, amid the plaudits of all the good. Seeing that, Gōpa's wives, making all gifts to Brahmans, with pure minds doing reverence to the lotus feet of Siddhānta-yōgindra, thinking on the feet of the great Vitarāga, went to heaven.—Gōpāyi and Padmāyi."²