Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c10.4

c10.4

In the north-west the empire had reached the limits of Goa even by A.D. 1391. A copy of a copper plate grant found in the archives of the Torre do Tombo in Lisbon records the execution of a grant by the chief of Goa in A.D. 1391 in the name of "Virahariar" king of Vijayanagar, the suzerain.² A record in the Honavali taluk in the Shimoga district mentions one Vīra Vasanta Mādhavarāya as the Govāpura varādhīśvara (lord of the good city of Goa).³ Thus even by 1391 Goa had been brought under the Vijayanagar sway. Kumāra Kampaṇa, the son of Bukka I, extended the frontiers of the Vijanagar empire in the south. He defeated the Śambuvarāya, the ruler of the Paḍaivīḍu kingdom, exterminated the Sultanate of Madura further south, and added these territories to the Vijayanagar empire. In 1385 Virūpākṣa, the son of Harihara II, conquered the island of Ceylon and extended the empire over the whole of South India.⁴ After the conquest of these portions of South India, Madura was made the headquarters of a separate governorship; and the governor of this part of the empire came to be called ‘Lord of the Southern Ocean’. The first governor who appeared with that designation was Lakkaṇṇa Daṇḍanāyaka who was the Prime Minister of Dēva Rāya II.⁵ An inscription at Nagar in the Chingleput district credits Dēva Rāya with having levied tribute from Ceylon (Īḷam tirai koṇḍa).⁶ Nuniz definitely states that Dēva Rāya II levied tribute not only from Ceylon but also from Coullāo (Quilon), Puleacate (Pulicat), Peguu (Pegu), and Tennaçary (Tennasserim).⁷ But the fortunes of the empire ebbed and flowed. When there were weak kings at the centre foreign rulers like the Gajapatis and the Bahmani Sultans made incursions into the Vijayanagar empire and took possession of big slices of it. During the period of the Sāḷuvas, the Gajapatis conquered a portion of the modern Nellore district, and Gaṅgarāja of Ummattūr revolted. Hence Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya applied himself to the task of reconquering many of the lost territories. Ummattūr was brought under his sway. The Gajapati was defeated, and by the treaty concluded subsequently with him the river Kṛṣṇā was made the boundary between the Vijayanagar dominions and the Gajapati kingdom. Raicūr, the bone of contention between the Hindu kings of the south and the Bahmani Sultans of the north, was taken. Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya led an expedition even to the distant Ceylon.⁸ The empire thus reached its farthest limit under him.