A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c21.s3.t17.33

c21.s3.t17.33

This King has continually fifty thousand paid soldiers, amongst whom are six thousand horsemen who belong to the palace guard, to which six thousand belong the two hundred who are obliged to ride with him. He has also twenty thousand spearmen and shield-bearers, and three thousand men to look after the elephants in the stables; he has sixteen hundred grooms¹ who attend to the horses, and has also three hundred horse trainers² and two thousand artificers, namely blacksmiths, masons, and carpenters, and washermen who wash clothes. These are the people he has and pays every day; he gives them their allowance at the gate of the palace. To the six thousand horsemen the King gives horses free and gives provision for them every month, and all these horses are marked with the King’s mark; when they die they are obliged to take the piece of skin containing the mark to Madanarque, the chief master of the horse, so that he may give them another, and these horses which he gives are mostly country-breds which the King buys, twelve or fifteen for a thousand *pardaos*.³ The King every year buys thirteen thousand horses of Ormuz, and country-breds, of which he chooses the best for his own stables, and he gives the rest to his captains, and gains much money by them; because after taking out the good Persian horses, he sells those which are country-bred, and gives five for a thousand *pardaos*, and they are obliged to pay him the money for them within the month of September; and with the money so obtained he pays for the Arabs that he buys of the Portuguese, in such a way that his captains pay the cost of the whole without anything going out of the Treasury.