A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c19.261

c19.261

The history of the seventeenth century in Southern India is one of confusion and disturbance. The different governors became independent. The kings of the decadent empire wasted their wealth and lost their territories, so that at length they held a mere nominal sovereignty, and nothing remained but the shadow of the once great name—the prestige of family. And yet, even so late as the years 1792 and 1793, I find a loyal Reddi in the south, in recording on copper-plates some grants of land to temples, declaring that he did so by permission of "Venkatapati Mahârâya of Vijayanagar;"¹ while I know of eight other grants similarly recognising the old Hindu royal family, which were engraved in the eighteenth century.²