Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c11.52

c11.52

K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar also thinks that these assemblies slowly lost their vitality in the Vijayanagar period. He says: "Under the kings of the last Vijayanagar dynasty and in the dark days of what is generally called the memorable invasion of Malik Kafur as well as during the period of rule of the kings of the Bahmani line, the political and social institutions together with the official machinery of Southern India which were in existence from the earliest times had been shaken root and branch."38 Saletore, however, believes that the village assemblies continued to function as local republics till a very late period, and questions Venkoba Rao's conclusions.³⁹ He bases his view on the fact that the Vijayanagar emperors respected the *pūrvamaryāda* of the people to a very great extent. He says: "We believe that the Vijayanagara monarchs did not introduce measures by which the powers of the local bodies lapsed to the central authority. On the other hand we may be permitted to repeat, that as promoters of the *pūrvadamaryāde* (ancient constitutional usage) it was their endeavour to preserve the old order of things and to allow the ancient officers to continue under the new government, although......they showed their discretion by placing over the local bodies officers of the central government." 40 But such respect for the *pūrvamaryāda* was confined only to certain customary rights which certain individuals or groups of persons enjoyed for a long time past. It does not appear to have had anything to do with the fostering of the village republics. The centralised machinery of the Vijayanagar administration could not have fostered the healthy growth of the village communal institutions. The kings themselves did not aim at the destruction of the village republics, yet the way in which they controlled even the distant parts of their empire could not have encouraged the active and judicious functioning of these village institutions. Further the appointment of the *Āyagārs* by the government stifled the free life of the village republics.