Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.46

c6.46

In this connection it must be noted that the true significance of the coronation of the Crown Prince was not always properly understood by the chroniclers and foreign travellers. A few writers are of the opinion that it marked the abdication of the ruling sovereign. One such is Nuniz, the Portuguese chronicler who speaks about the so-called abdication of Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya. He says: "The king perceiving that he was already advanced in years desiring to rest in his old (?) age and wishing his son to become King when he died, he determined to make him King during his life time, the boy being six years old and the King not knowing what would happen after his death. Wherefore he abdicated his throne and all his power and name and gave it all to his son and himself became his minister."²⁶