Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.s2.23

c6.s2.23

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.