Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.s2.2

c6.s2.2

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