Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.s2: Section III. The Secretariat

Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.s2

Language: English

Section III. The Secretariat

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A vast empire like that of Vijayanagar could not have been ruled simply by a king assisted by a Council. The dry details of the administration must have been attended to by an efficient secretariat staff. The secretariat must have been divided into various departments each in charge of a part of the administration. The inscriptions of the period do not, however, enlighten us very much on this point; though we get occasional references to such departments as the military and treasury, we are not able to know exactly the number of such departments or their relations to one another. Abdur Razāk who saw the working of the secretariat at the imperial headquarters has a few words to say about it. He says : "On the right hand of the palace of the Sultan (Vijayanagar emperor) there is the dīwān khāna or minister's office, which is extremely large and presents the appearance of a chihal situn or forty-pillared hall; and in front of it there runs a raised gallery, higher than the stature of a man, thirty yards long and six broad, where the records are kept and the scribes are seated."¹²⁶ Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya also appears to have understood the value of a big secretariat for he says in his Āmuktamālyada : "When the work of a single (subordinate) officer is entrusted to a number of men and when each of them is assisted by his friends the business of the state may easily be accomplished. Their satisfaction (with the king) increases or decreases with the increase or decrease of their number. Nothing can be achieved without the willing co-operation of several officers; to keep them docile and obedient truthfulness and the absence of niggardliness and cruelty are helpful."¹²⁷

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¹²⁶ Elliot. Hist. of India, IV, p. 107.

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¹²⁷ Canto IV, vv. 214-15.

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An office called the Rāyasam, and its officials are frequently mentioned in the inscriptions. The term Rāyasam, which is a popular form of vrāyasam, means literally the profession of writing. There appears to have been an office of that name in Vijayanagar; and people employed in this office generally prefixed the name of the office to their personal names, and this in course of time was transformed into their surname. Rāyasam Koṇḍamarasayya and his son and grandson, Timmarasayya and Ayyaparasayya, respectively adopted in this manner the term Rāyasam as a family name. The officer called Rāyasasvāmi, mentioned in a Mysore inscription,¹²⁸ was apparently its head. It is not possible to definitely fix the position of the Rāyasam in the administrative machinery of the empire. The office was probably a secretariat attached to the person of the king. Persons attached to the department rose to high positions, and became ministers of state.¹²⁹ Nuniz, who refers to these Rāyasams as ‘secretaries’, gives an account of their duties. The Vijayanagar sovereigns never issued written orders to their governors or servants, nor did they make grants in writing. But they had their own ‘secretaries’ who wrote what the kings said and the favours they bestowed. Nuniz gives a clear description of how the orders of the kings were carried out. He says: “When he (the king) confers a favour on any one it remains written in the registers of his secretaries. The king, however, gives the recipient of the favour a seal impressed in wax from one of his rings which the minister keeps and these seals serve for letters patent.”¹³⁰ These ‘secretaries’ who always remained with the king and noted all he said or did, resemble the Tiruvāykēlvis of the Cōḷa inscriptions who had similar duties to discharge.¹³¹ The evidence of epigraphy corroborates the prevalence of this practice in the Vijayanagar days. An inscription at Tirukōyilūr in the South Arcot district registers that certain lands in the three banks out of 12 banks in the village (Tirukōyilūr) were sold at a loss to the temple of Tiruviḍaikaḷināyaṉār by the tenants, owing to their inability to pay the taxes, and that when Immaḍi Narasā Nāyaka visited the temple on a dvādaśi day, he made these lands tax free, and ordered the profits thereon to be utilised for offerings and worship to the God on certain days every month. Immaḍi Narasayyadēva and Vīramarasayya Pallavarāyaṇ are mentioned as the king’s ‘secretaries’ to whom the above oral orders were given.¹³²

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¹²⁸ E.C., XII, Pg. 69.

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¹²⁹ 336 of 1915; S. K. Aiyangar, *Sources*, p. 230

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¹³⁰ Sewell, op. cit., p. 375.

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¹³¹ See S. K. Aiyangar, *Hindu Administrative Institutions of South India*, p. 253; K. A. Nilakanta Sastri: *The Cōḷas*, ii, p. 235.

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¹³² 330 of 1921.

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Karaṇikkam is another office which is frequently mentioned in the Vijayanagar inscriptions. The word karaṇikkam means an accountant. There was scarcely an institution or office during the Vijayanagar times which was without its staff of karaṇikkams. Even the office of the Rāya’s harem had its karaṇikkam. Mangarasayya, the Vāśal karaṇikkam of Immaḍi Narasimha and Kṛṣṇa Rāya, is mentioned in a few inscriptions of the North Arcot district,¹³³ which indicate that the Vāśal karaṇikkas had some sort of connection, which it is difficult to determine at present, with the provincial government.

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¹³³ 84 of 1923; 52 of 1887 : S.I.I., IV, No. 52 in Vol. V, pp. 1515-16.

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The king had a large number of officers in his establishment each of whom was assigned some work in the palace. The most important of them was the Sarvanāyaka. In a few inscriptions he was called Maneyapradhāna (House Minister).¹³⁴ He seems to have been charged with the duty of attending to the needs and conveniences of the king’s household and had control over the palace establishment. He had a large number of servants under him, like the betel bearer with whose aid he discharged his duties.¹³⁵ It is interesting to note here that the same office of the Sarvanāyaka still exists in some Indian States though the name of the officer has undergone some change.

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¹³⁴ E.C., IV, Ng. 59.

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¹³⁵ These palace servants included men belonging to the domestic establishment of the palace, and also those who were there to maintain the dignity of the king. In the former group were those in charge of the clothing, those who attended to lighting, gardeners, tailors, sweepers, and others; while the latter group consisted of the insignia bearers such as the bearer of the umbrella, bearer of the torch, and those who carried the cobda sticks (batons of honour). There were also in that group persons who at times of processions carried the paraphernalia of the king, such as the standard and the jayabheri (victory drum). There were a few who were in charge of the state horses and elephants. In this group also came the personal attendants of the king like the shoe-bearers and the holders of the insignia of cauri and cāmaram.—See The Pudukkottai State Manual, p. 446.

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An officer called Tirumandira Ōlaināyagam is referred to in one of the records of the Madura Nāyaks of the late sixteenth century.¹³⁶ The officer is otherwise unknown in the Vijayanagar The image provided is blank.

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¹³⁶ 187 of 1895; S.I.I., V, No. 751.

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Crest of Vijayanagar Kings

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times. Probably the Madura Nāyaks, who regarded themselves as successors of the Pāṇḍyas, revived an ancient office which was in vogue during the age of the Pāṇḍyan kings.

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The officer in charge of the royal seal was a high dignitary in the state, and was necessarily one who was in the confidence of the king. He was known to epigraphy as the Mudre officer or Mudra karta.¹³⁷ To this group belonged two other officers who were known by the designations of Ājñādhāraka and Ājñāparipālaka executors of the orders of the king.¹³⁸

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¹³⁷ 1 of 1917 ; E.C., IV, Yl. 45 ; M.A.R., 1926, No. 24.

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¹³⁸ E.C., IV, Cn. 145 ; E.C.. III, Tn. 55.

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Another important officer of the palace was the Vāśal or Vāśal kāriyam.¹³⁹ The office carried great dignity with it. Persons seeking audience with the king or entrance into the palace had to obtain the permission of this officer who appointed his men to guard the gates of the palace. Both Paes and Nuniz, call him ‘the chief of the guard.’¹⁴⁰ In the battlefields he led a part of the force. Kāma Nāyaka, the chief guard of Kṛṣṇa Rāya, for instance, led the advance in the Raicūr campaign of the king with thirty thousand infantry-archers, men with shields, musketeers and spearmen and a thousand horse and his six elephants.¹⁴¹ Kampaṇa Uḍaiyār, the conqueror of Madura, was according to tradition, one such door-keeper under the Hoyśāla kings.¹⁴² This important office under the Hoyśāla and the Vijayanagar kings reminds us of the office of the Dauvārika of the ancient Hindu courts.

Linked texts (4)

Āmuktamālyada — Kṛṣṇadevarāya 1515, Telugu
Epigraphia Indica
Epigraphia Carnatica
South Indian Inscriptions