Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c10.s2.90

c10.s2.90

But in certain other respects the Vijayanagar nāyaṅkara system differed from its European parallel. Firstly in the manner in which it was brought into existence: European feudalism was the result of two sets of forces—the process of commendation where the individual small landowner to ensure his own safety commended himself to a lord, gave his lands to him, and received them back as a fief in return for service on his part on the promise of protection by the lord, and the process of beneficium according to which the lord granted lands to the tenant in return for certain specific services to be rendered; but the nāyaṅkara system was the result of the deliberate policy of the kings in assigning territories to the nāyakas in return for military service and a fixed financial contribution.