Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c15.26

c15.26

The state, however, made endowments for the study of certain subjects and honoured great scholars and literary celebrities. Technical sciences like astrology, astronomy and medicine also received great patronage from the Vijayanagar court. In A.D. 1556-57 the great scholar and astrologer Sarvabhaṭṭa was granted a village with all its income.¹⁸ In 1515 the village of Nāgulavaram and a field measuring 2,250 kuṇṭas were granted to a Brahman astronomer who was versed in (the science of) the movements of stars, an expert in the science of the Yantras (mystic tantric diagrams for worship) and an astronomer versed in the science of Yāmala (*Rudrayāmala*, a certain treatise on mantra).¹⁹ According to a copper-plate a village was granted to Sampat Kumāra who had with him excellent and learned Brahmans of various gotras and relatives, who was the foremost among the physicians and who was the renowned son of the great Gōvinda Paṇḍita, who was a great scholar in Āyurveda and the Vedāṅgas.²⁰ A Brahman doctor was the recipient of a gift of land perhaps in recognition of his abilities in his profession.²¹ Similarly scholars who had acquired a vast amount of general learning were greatly honoured. Thus a scholar (unnamed) who wrote a work called Bhāṣya Bhūṣā was honoured by a grant of land.²² Mallikārjuna Rāya honoured one Āditya Rāya, a Brahman learned in the Vedas, Śāstras, Purāṇas and the six systems of philosophy with the grant of a village named Dēvarāyapura, in recognition of his scholarship. It is said the scholar was examined by the king in all branches of learning in a learned assembly, and was honoured in open court.²³ Tirumaladēva Mahārāya made a grant of one vṛtti of land in a village for the study of the Ṛg Veda and another for that of Yajur Veda.²⁴ According to a copper-plate grant, Veṅkaṭapati Rāya made a gift of land in A.D. 1612-13 to the scholar Rāmakṛṣṇa Jōsya who belonged to the Hārita Gotra and Āpastamba sūtra, and was well versed in the Vedas, Vedāṅgas, Tarka (logic), Smṛti, and Sūryasiddhānta.²⁵ Similarly, at the request of Nāga Nāyaka, son of Malla Nāyaka, Immaḍi Narasimha made a grant of Cākenahaḷḷi to forty persons well versed in Mīmāmsā, Nyāya, the three Vedas, the Purāṇas, the Smṛtis, the tantras and the mantras and who were strict observers of the religious customs and ceremonies.26 In the Vijayanagar days there lived many such scholars who received great patronage at the hands of the ruling sovereigns. To mention only a few of them: they were Mādhava, Vidyāraṇya, Vēdānta Dēśika, Diṇḍima Kavi, Tātācārya, Vyāsarāya Tīrtha, and Appayya Dikṣita.