Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c14.18

c14.18

The activities of Kampaṇa in the south proved a death-knell to the Muhammadan domination in the south. Ruined temples were restored by him and worship in them was revived. When he was active in the south the enthusiastic sons of Saṅgama were active in the north. In the arduous task of stemming the tide of Islamic aggression, they were helped by the distinguished pontifical heads of the Śṛṅgēri maṭha, Vidyātīrtha and Vidyāraṇya. Later tradition even goes to the extent of crediting Vidyāraṇya with the foundation of the city of Vijayanagar for the preservation of Hindu religion and Dharma. Kriyāśakti Paṇḍita of the Pāśupata school of Śaivism also joined hands in the Hindu effort to save South India from Islamic aggression. "It is a recognised element of national psychology that where a society is on the defence it cherishes every inherited tradition and holds fast to all things good and bad which it has inherited. Conservatism becomes a national virtue; the maintenance of what has been a point of national honour. That is not the time for reforms, for the raison d'etre of the State is the defence of what exists. The orthodoxy of the kings became therefore the central point in the State. Hence it is that the great States which stood out the Mahommedan influence........like Vijayanagar........became the citadels of orthodoxy, places where customs, which in a free India never had universal acceptance, came to be considered orthodox and unchangeable."7a The ideal for which Vijayanagar and its kings stood is well indicated by an epigraph of A.D. 1376 which states: "In the world Acyuta (Kṛṣṇa) was born to Yaśōdā and Nanda Gōpa and gave them a promise that he would eventually reappear as a king to deliver the world when it was overspread by Mlecchas. Accordingly he was born in the region of Pampāpuri to Saṅgama and his wife Kāmāmbikā as Bukkamahīpati."8 It was an epoch of religious excitement and moral awakening when the forces of Hinduism were strengthened. The interest of the kings in such a movement is well borne out by such titles as Vedamārgapratiṣṭhāpanācārya and Vaidikamārga pratiṣṭhāpanācārya which the early rulers of Vijayanagar took. It was also a period when "the teachings of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Madhvācārya, the doctrine of the Vedānta, Advaita and Dvaita schools, the creed of the Jaṅgamas or Liṅgāyats, etc., were led to interminable discussions all urging their respective tenets with a zeal."9