Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.76

c6.76

At no time did the State in India interfere with the private life of the citizens so much as in the mediaeval period. The assumption of the title, the maintainer of the castes, by the Vijayanagar kings and the appointment of the samayācāryas indicate fully the vigour with which the kings enforced svadharma on the respective castes and communities in India. They maintained the maṭhas in the realm and helped them financially. But all these duties that they undertook to discharge do not lend support to the view that the kings were the ecclesiastical or religious heads; on the other hand they go to prove that the kings were greatly interested in the social solidarity of the empire and anxious to ensure peace and prosperity in the realm. There were of course inequalities and diversities which were allowed to subsist, and no attempt was ever made to level down distinctions and differences. But, as Dr. Bandyopadhyaya says, “ with the peculiar ideas and beliefs dominating the minds of men in those days ‘ equality never became a political necessity ’ with Indian thinkers; . . . and in the midst of these differences ample room was found for co-operation and progress ; with a composite social structure, with all its cultural or occupational differences not to be obliterated easily, this was all they could look to and strove for.” 43