Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c25.s1.77

v2.c25.s1.77

If it were really true that people allowed themselves to be crushed under the wheels of temple chariots, other travellers would not have failed to learn something about it. It is not only Paes who does not mention this detail; in the accounts of the Jesuits too, who have also left behind them notices of the "beastly superstitions" of the Hindus spoken of by Linschoten, no reference is made to the ghastly incident given by Conti and Linschoten. Nicolas Pimenta in A. D. 1599 writes thus about the events on the Coromandal coast. While describing the city of St. Thomas (i. e. Mylapore) he says: "But so prodigious and innumerable were their Idols, in many very faire Temples, and other lessee Oratories almost without number, that Superstition contended with Ambition; and the Colosses of their Idols were removed from place to place in Chariots as high as steeples, by thousands of men setting their shoulders to the Wheeles."¹