Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c25.s1.126

v2.c25.s1.126

A festival which specially interested foreigners was the Siḍi or Hook-swinging. This was well known to the early times. In A. D. 1123 in the reign of the Western Chālukya king Tribhuvanamalla Dēva, when under the orders of the Maneverggaḍe Daṇḍanāyaka Sālipagya, Rāmaya was ruling the Banavāsi 12,000, the Mahāsāvanta Bopparasa and his wife Siriya Devi "surrounded by all the subjects were in the temple (of Koṇḍasabāvi) at the rice fields." Then the cowherd Mārana's son Dēkaya Nāyaka made a vow saying: "If the king obtains a son, I will give my head to swing on the pole for the god Brahmā of Koṇḍasabāvi." Some one whose name is effaced in the record, granted rice lands to provide for a line of 810 lights on this occasion and ? for the expenses of the basadi.¹ The festival receives the name from the iron hook or siḍi from which a man was suspended and swung round, the hook being passed through the sinews of the back.² Women also gave up their lives in this manner. A record dated about A. D. 1215 informs us that on the death of the Halivana sāvanta Si... Seya Nāyaka's mother Honnaka Nāyakiti, Ma... ...ya... Kitti Honni gave her head to the hook and died.³