Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c24.s2.2

v2.c24.s2.2

We shall now learn about the coporate activities of the people of Vijayanagara in matters related partly to the political, partly to the legal but mostly to the religious and social spheres of life. Here, again, it may be worth while to remember the evidence we have already cited about the endeavours of the people to knit themselves in issues which were purely political.¹ According to a record dated A. D. 1379 the Mahāsāmantādhipati Śoṇṇaiyar Nāyakkar's son Aṅkaya Nāyakkar the superintendent of Noṇḍaṅguḷi-nāḍu, Achcha Gauḍa, and Nārāyaṇa and Veṅgaḍam Uḍaiyan, the pūjāris of the temple of Śelva-Nārāyaṇa-pperumaḷ at Noṇḍaṅguḷi agreed to exempt from taxes, for the first two years, the lands brought under wet cultivation below the tank...in Noṇḍaṅguḷi, built by Pammi Seṭṭiyar's son Periya-perumāḷ Seṭṭiyar, one of the Vaiśya-vāṇiya-Nagarattār...; and that, thenceforward, the remaining wet lands after taking away the kuḍaṅgai, shall become the property of the god.²