Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c22.s2.44

v2.c22.s2.44

Allowances granted to the relatives of those who died in a cow-raid, siege, or riot were called merely *umbaḷi* grants or *nettaru-goḍage* in Vijayanagara times. In A. D. 1387 "some one fell in fight at Chandragutti " and an *umbaḷi* was granted to his son.⁴ Another incomplete record dated A. D. 1436 informs us that "the servant of Bomma-gavuḍa of...of Eḍe-nāḍ...Chandragutti of Banavāsi Twelve Thousand...Hiriya Tammaya Nāyaka, besieging Kaṇagoṭa in the service of his master, fell. For his children was granted an *umbaḷi*".⁵ In the reign of the same monarch, Dēva Rāya II, according to another effaced record, his minister Irugappa Oḍeyar ruled over Gōve and Chandragutti. "From Eḍe-nāḍ, especially from Kuppeyahaḷḷi, Malalagade Bomma Gauḍa, in the service of his *guru* Nāgi Dēva, besieged Banavāsi,...thinking that if they gave...they would be beaten...Bayichana of the school (*sāle-yana Bayichanu*)...and gained the world of gods. For his children, the forty-two, being pleased, granted land (specified) as a *nettaru-gōdāna*".¹ We are to imagine that when marauders drove off the cows of Koṇḍagaṇaḷe, in A. D. 1448, and Mādi Gauḍa and Sūrappa Gauḍa, father and son, both fought with the army, stabbed the men, seized the horse, and distinguished themselves with the highest devotion, provision must also have been made for their children by the people of Koṇḍagaṇaḷe. The record merely ends with the fact that on this occasion "Madi-Gauḍa's wife and mother both went to *svarga*".²