Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c22.s3.64

v2.c22.s3.64

Monarchs as well as their viceroys were held in great esteem by the people. Virūpa Rāya, son of the king Bukka Rāya, was, as we have seen, the viceroy over Āraga Eighteen Kampaṇa, in A.D. 1367. "In order that Virūpa Rāya might have a firm kingdom", the (people) of the Fifty nāḍs (of Āraga Eighteen Kampaṇa, the Gutti Eighteen Kampaṇa, and Iduguṇḍi) made a grant of land (specified) in Bandigaṇali village, for the offerings of the god Śankara obviously of the same locality.¹ "In order that the *Surattān* (Sultan) of Hindu kings, Hariharanātha's son Bukka Rāyan might exercise universal sovereignty", as is related in a Tamil inscription dated A. D. 1380, Tāmandai Ādināta's son set up the image of the god Ādi-Nārāyaṇa-perumāḷ at Muraśūr as an act of king's charity.² Bukka Rāya's popularity is proved by other charitable endowments as well. According to a grant dated only in the cyclic year Duṇdubhi but assignable to the year A. D. 1382, Irugappa, the famous general, and the son of the general Vaichaya, "for the merit of the glorious *mahāmaṇḍalēśvara* Bukkarāja, the son of Arihara-rāja," (i. e., Harihara Rāya) granted the village of Mahēndramaṅgalam in the district of