Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c23.s3.12

v2.c23.s3.12

Another special feature of the daily life of the people, which we may also be allowed to repeat, is that in connection with the weekly fairs called *sante*. Paes relates the following: "On every Friday you have a fair there, with many pigs and fowls and dried fish from the sea, and other things the produce of the country, of which I do not know the name; and in like manner a fair is held every day in different parts of the city."² Nuniz has some additional remarks to make on the condition of markets: "Everything has to be sold alive so that each one may know what he buys—this at least so far as concerns game—and there are fish from the rivers in large quantities. The markets are always overflowing with abundance of fruits, grapes, oranges, limes, pomegranates, jack-fruit, and mangoes, and all very cheap."³ The importance attached to the establishment of a weekly fair, which is evident from the manner in which assignments of land and taxes were made by the people for the officials who were in charge of it, as given in more than one epigraph cited in this treatise, may also be remembered in this connection.