Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c22.s3.138

v2.c22.s3.138

The same patriotic motives which marked the charitable endowments of the people of the times of Kṛishṇa Dēva Rāya and Achyuta Rāya continued to manifest themselves under the next sovereign Sadāśiva Rāya. An effaced inscription dated A. D. 1540 informs us that the *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara*...mariya... *mahā-arasu*, in order that merit might be to Sadāśiva Mahārāya, granted the customs on goods by road both ways at Hiriya Mālūr, for the service of the god Tiruvēṅgaḷanātha.³ Veṅkaṭādri Nāyaka, according to an inscription dated only in the cyclic year Śōbhakṛit, Tai, 2 (but assignable to the Śaka year 1463 expired—December, Thursday 29th A.D. 1541), gave the village of Periya-Āśur to the temple of Alagiyaśinga Perumāḷ at Eṇṇāyiram, South Arcot district, for the merit of the Emperor.⁴ Mudagaṭṭa Paṇḍitayya, the Agent of Salaha-Rāja Chennaya Dēva Mahā-arasu, in A. D. 1547, granted the village of Rāmāpura of the Bāṇavādi-sthala, for the illuminations and offerings of the god Virabhadra of Bāṇavādi. The object of the donor was the same.⁵ Sūrappa Nāyaka made a gift (evidently of land to the Veṅkaṭaramaṇasvāmi temple at Gingee), in Śaka 1472 (A. D. 1550-1) for the merit of Sadāśiva Rāya.¹ Era Kṛṣṇappa Nāyaka granted the village of Baluvaḷi otherwise called Kṛṣṇasamudra, for the offerings of the god Chenniga Rāya of Bāgūr, in about A. D. 1552, in order that merit might accrue to Sadāśiva Rāya.² Sugaṭūr Tammappa Gauḍa in A. D. 1566 granted the village Dāsarahalli, otherwise called Dēvapura, also for the same purpose.³ The great Āvaṭi-nāḍ prabhu Soṇapa Gauḍa-ayya granted the village of Muḍigere in Hosaūr-nāḍ, in A. D. 1565, for the festivals and illuminations of the god Chennakēśava of Muḍigere, "in order that unfading merit might be to Sadāśiva Rāya Mahārāya, to Tirumala Rājayya and to their sons, and that the world of unfading merit might be obtained by his own mother and father". The grant was made in the days of woe that followed the great battle of Rākshasa-Taṅgaḍi. It states that it was made "by his (the Emperor's) command, and by order of Tirumala Rāya."⁴ Since it is doubtful whether Sadāśiva Rāya would have commanded one of his great nobles to issue a grant, when questions of the greatest importance were facing him, and since it is impossible to believe that both the monarch and Tirumala Rājayya would have simultaneously ordered a chief to make a grant, we are to assume that the great Āvaṭi-nāḍ prabhu was merely giving vent to the conventional mode of expressing his gratitude to the ruler and the powerful Tirumala Rājayya, when he said that it was at their instance that he assigned the village of Muḍigere for the local temple.