Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.t1: Checks on Royal Authority

Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c6.t1

Language: English

Checks on Royal Authority

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Though the king was the most important organ in the body politic, he was never an autocrat. The powers of the king were generally limited by certain codes and institutions. Of course there was no constitutional check on the rapacity and highhandedness of a sovereign. But the administration was based more on conventions and experience than on constitutional laws. The independence of the sovereign was checked by various factors.

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The Vijayanagar king, like all the ancient kings of India, was not a law-maker. The laws were already in existence which the king was to obey and execute. Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya insists on the protection of the Dharma by the ruling sovereigns. The royal poet says: “A crowned king should always rule with an eye towards Dharma; the lives of the gods like Indra, Varuṇa, Vaiśravaṇa, Vāyu and Agni are the results of their actions. The various worlds as Bhūḥ, Bhuvaḥ and Suvaḥ owe their positions to Dharma.”⁵⁰

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⁵⁰ Ibid., canto IV, v. 285.

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Such was the lofty conception of the king about Dharma and royal duties. The sources of such laws were the Vedas, Smṛtis and the Dharmaśāstras. Of course the Vijayanagar kings claimed, as many other kings have done, a divine origin for their power. But the divine origin claimed for monarchy in India is not in any way analogous to the divine right claimed by the early Stuarts in England. The British sovereigns of the early seventeenth century claimed divine origin for their powers to support their absolutism. But the Hindu theory was propounded not as a claim for absolutism or autocracy. The view was that the king was an incarnation of God on earth for the support of the people by ruling over them righteously. Kṛṣṇa Rāya observes: “Manu, Daṇḍadhara and others became known as followers of *Dharma* only by finding out the mistakes of the subjects and punishing them. The anointed king who is equal to God and who is created by God (*Prajāpati*) in various forms for the purpose of ruling the subjects is known by various terms which are sanctioned by the Vedas as Virāṭ, Samrāṭ, and should put up with the trouble and relieve the sufferings of the people”.⁵¹ Really it is difficult to call such a king an autocrat, a king who was actuated in his actions by his keen sense of moral responsibility to his people.

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⁵¹ *Amukta*., canto IV, v. 285.

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This apart, there were more visible checks on the king. One of them was the organised community itself. It is said that one of the characteristics of the present day political theory is its reaction against the State and a salient political fact is the increasing amount and power of group life, trade unions, and professional societies, citizens’ leagues, and neighbourhood associations. Such leagues and guilds were not unknown in ancient and mediaeval India. There were the associations of the *nānādēśis*, the *nāḍs*, the *ayyavōle*, craft guilds, the groups of ninety-eight sects, each of which had a definite organisation. They made rules and regulations for themselves and the State did not interfere with their functions except when there arose misunderstandings among them. The Central government was content with the exercise of a supervisory control over them. As Radhakumud Mookerji observes, “it is the quasi-instinctive postulates and conventions of group-life which come to be formulated as *law* and not the mandate, command or decree of a single central authority in the state. Law, under these conditions, is not an arte-fact. but a natural growth of consensus and communal life.”⁵²

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⁵² *Nationalism in Hindu Culture*, pp. 99-100.

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An interesting inscription from Viriñcipuram in the North Arcot district describes a regulation made by a few communities for themselves. The representatives of the Brahmans of the kingdom of Paḍaiviḍu among whom Karṇāṭa, Tamil, Telugu and Lāṭa Brahmans are mentioned, signed an agreement to the effect that henceforth marriages among their families had only to be concluded by Kanyādāna, i.e., that the father had to give his daughter to the bridegroom gratuitously, and that both the father who accepted money and the bridegroom who paid money for the bride should be punished by the king and excommunicated from their caste.53 Thus the communities made regulations for themselves and the king's duty was only to enforce them.

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Custom and public opinion contributed their share to check the royal authority. The differences in the practices of the people are attributable to the peculiar local customs prevailing in the different parts of the empire. Taxation was based more on custom than on any definite scientific principles. There was no uniformity in the weights and measures in the empire. It was difficult for the king to make any innovation or regulation contrary to the accepted customary usages of the communities and peoples whom the new innovation would affect.

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An undated record which seems to belong to the fifteenth century, coming from Penṇāḍam in the South Arcot district, states that any one introducing or using in the locality a measuring rod other than the mūvāyiravaṅkōl (whose linear measurement is indicated by two marks cut on the stone about fifteen feet apart) was to be awarded the same punishment as śivadrōhins, grāmadrōhins and nāṭṭudrōhins. There seem to have been several measuring rods in use in the different parts of the empire. Any standardisation with regard to these measures was looked upon with suspicion. Any innovation proposed in the standard measures prevalent in a locality was considered so heinous a crime as to be classed with nāṭṭudrōham.54

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An examination of the formidable list of taxes under the Vijayanagar kings will reveal the fact that they were based largely on custom. Payments made to the overlord by the tenant or by the subject to the government were largely customary dues. Custom governed the sales of land. Along with the land sold were given away all the customary dues and periodical forced contributions to the purchaser. The State could not interfere in these things.

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Another equally important factor that acted as a check on royal authority was public opinion. Even the most autocratic government cannot set public opinion at naught. Any new

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53. See S.I.I., 1, No. 56.

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venture or policy undertaken even by the most powerful of kings should have the moral support either implied or expressed of the people over whom he ruled. In India this opinion was expressed by the people not by placing any constitutional obstruction in the way of the smooth working of the government, but by their peaceful and silent evacuation of the occupied territories. The levying of fresh taxes was opposed by the people in that way. In the history of the Vijayanagar empire such evacuations were not infrequent. Especially the occupation of the southern portions of the empire by the Kannaḍiyas⁵⁵ was detested by the people.

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⁵⁵ S. K. Aiyangar thinks that they were the Hoyśālas. But they were more probably the Tuḷuvas who appear to have migrated to the east with Timma, the grandfather of Narasā Nāyaka, and entered the service of the Sāḷuvas.

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An incomplete record coming from Tiruvenṇainallūr in the South Arcot district states that as the shepherds in charge of the temple cattle in Tiruvadi śīrmai were unable to pay the saḍak-kaḍaimai tax and migrated to other places, their tax was reduced by Aramvaḷartta Nāyanār, the agent of Narasā Nāyaka, to 1½ paṇams per year per payir, a particular unit.⁵⁶ Finding that public opinion was not in favour of the continuation of the marriage tax payable by the bride and bridegroom at the time of marriage of a virgin, the enlightened sovereign Kṛṣṇa Rāya remitted it. There are many records which praise not only the king but also the local influential people for this remission.⁵⁷

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⁵⁶ 450 of 1921.

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⁵⁷ 387 of 1904; E.C., XII, Mg. 64.

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A very important check on royal authority was the Royal Council. The kings were never without this Council which advised them in the affairs of state. They consulted it on state matters and policy. It was this Council that performed the coronation of the king and conducted the administration of the country. Under weak kings it rose to great influence and power. In fact, the Council was dominated by one strong minister, the Pradhāni. Rāma Rāja’s influence in Sadāśiva’s court is seen from the details disclosed by a lithic record which states that he made the ministers perform the coronation of Sadāśiva. That even powerful kings like Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya consulted the Council before undertaking any work is borne out by the evidence of the Kṛṣṇarāyavijayamu, which states that soon after his coronation Kṛṣṇa Rāya enquired of his ministers about the amount of his imperial revenue, and strength of his army, and they furnished him with the necessary information.⁵⁸ Again according to the same work, after inflicting a defeat on the Muhammadans the king consulted Sāḷuva Timma on the advisability of proceeding further into the Mussalman territories, and when the minister advised him not to undertake such a rash task the king accepted the advice.⁵⁹

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⁵⁸ S. K. Aiyangar, *Sources*, p. 130.

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⁵⁹ *Ibid*, p. 131.

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In estimating the character of the Vijayanagar administration, Vincent Smith remarks that “the Vijayanagar king was an autocrat of the most absolute possible kind unrestrained by any form of check.”⁶⁰ Iswari Prasad says it was an autocracy, and observes that the needs of the empire determined the character of the government.⁶¹ But we cannot judge the character of an administration from the needs felt at the time. It is true that what was required in the Vijayanagar period was a strong and efficient army to arrest the Muhammadan aggressions and put down the turbulent feudal vassals, and hence the Vijayanagar kings were keen on improving the military organisation in the empire; and they succeeded in that to a large extent. They recruited directly for the army, gathered feudal levies and effected some reforms in their army organisation on the lines of the Muhammadans. But such a policy calculated to improve the organisation and efficiency of the military did not in any way affect the character of the government. The old and traditional view that the government was for the good of the governed still continued to actuate the motives and policy of the Vijayanagar kings. They had a paternal conception of their duties and obligations to their subjects. There might have been kings who did not care much for the good of the people, but they were very few and unpopular. In fact an epigraph of Harihara II says that he maintained the customs of the various castes and protected all his subjects as if they were his own children.⁶² Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya was also influenced by this paternal conception of the duties of a king and his government towards the people, and tried to remove their difficulties and redress their grievances. His views on the duties of kings towards the subjects are available to us in his *Āmuktamālyada* where he says: “Be always intent upon protecting your subjects . . .; the people of a country wish the welfare of the king who seeks the progress and prosperity of the country.”⁶³ The same view is expressed by Allasāni Peddana, the poet laureate of Kṛṣṇa Rāya’s court, in his description of the ideal kingship of Svārociṣa Manu, the hero of his *Manucaritamu*. The poet says that the king Svārociṣa Manu “ruled over his subjects with kindness as if they were his own children.”⁶⁴ It looks as though he has described here the rule of Kṛṣṇa Rāya, his patron. This passage reminds one of Aśoka’s Borderer’s Edict where the great emperor says : “All men are my children, and just as for my children I desire that they should enjoy all happiness and prosperity both in this world and in the next, so for all men I desire the like happiness and prosperity.” Like feelings were held by the Vijayanagar sovereigns towards their subjects. They had the welfare of the governed at heart, and to this end they strained every nerve. If the machinery of the government is only a means to achieve an end—the good of the people—then the Vijayanagar government, being actuated by a paternal conception of its duties, ministered to the needs of the people and attended to their welfare.

Cites (3)

Āmuktamālyada — Kṛṣṇadevarāya 1515, Telugu
Epigraphia Carnatica
South Indian Inscriptions