Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c22.s3.1

v2.c22.s3.1

In addition to the system of granting lands to persons who performed useful services to the country, the State also bestowed titles, honours, and privileges on all classes of people. The rulers themselves assumed great titles, and their subordinates, as in other matters, imitated them. Without entering into the question of the validity of the claims of the rulers of Vijayanagara to assume a string of grandiloquent birudus, we may allude briefly to the titles of the greatest monarch of southern India, Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya, before narrating those of some of the most prominent generals and viceroys of Vijayanagara.¹ An inscription dated Śaka 1430 (A. D. 1518-9) gives the following birudus of Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya : "The angry punisher of rival kings; he whose arms resemble (the coils of the serpent Śēsha); he who is versed in protecting the earth; the destroyer of those kings who break their word; he who satisfies suppliants; he who is fierce in war; the king of kings and the supreme lord of kings; the destroyer of the three kings (of the south); he who terrifies hostile kings; the Sultan among Hindu kings; he who crushes the wicked like tigers; and the double-headed eagle which splits the temples of troops of elephants";²—"his generosity praised by the wise, this king of kings Kṛṣṇa Rāya, established on the jewel-throne in Vijayanagara, daily surpassing Nṛiga and all others, shone in the power of good fortune and the fullness of fame from the eastern to the western mountains and from the extremity of Hēmāchala to Sētu."³ Sometimes, however, the great Emperor was merely styled samasta-bhuvanāśraya—"The Refuge of all worlds"—which carries us the memories of the Hoysalas and the Western Chālukyas.⁴ These birudus, which were not altogether unjustifiable, except in a few instances, sounded incredibly pedantic to foreigners like Pimenta.⁵