Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c11.58

c11.58

These village functionaries were generally appointed by the government. An inscription at Rāvulaceruvu in the Anantapur district registers the conferment of the reḍḍirikam right over Dharmāvaram in equal shares on two families during the regime of Samprati Tipparājayya over Pennamāgāṇi in Guṭṭi rājya. It also specifies several individuals as the holders of different offices in the village and the extent of land allotted to them.⁴² A copperplate grant said to be of the time of Śrī Raṅga II states that the Yalahaṅka nāḍu Prabhu Immaḍi Kempe Gauḍa granted the right of reading the pañcāṅga or almanac in a few villages to one Avubaḷa Narasimha Bhaṭṭa, and provided that the fees attached to the office of reading the pañcāṅga in those villages were to be enjoyed by him and his descendants.⁴³ Once granted to them these Āyagārs had a hereditary right over their offices, and whenever disputes arose as to who had the right to a particular office, the government took great care to find out to whom it belonged by custom and long usage and decided such cases. Thus according to an inscription of A.D. 1565, when a few persons complained to the agent of Rāmadēva Mahārāya that the offices of Sēnabōva and Jyōtiṣa, which they had been enjoying since the days of their ancestors, had been brought under the sist and requested that they must be granted to them, he instituted an enquiry into the matter and declared: "The former residents affirming that the offices of Sēnabōva, Jyōtiṣa, Purohita and others belonging to the Sante-Bennūr-śīme in the Uccange veṇṭhe were held by you—we therefore grant them to you, as a gift to Rāma, to be enjoyed by you, your sons, grandsons, and posterity in regular succession, and you may take possession of the dues and rights (specified) belonging thereto in the Sante-Bennūr śīme."⁴⁴