Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s1.2

c7.s1.2

The Taxation Department was known as the athavana,²⁹⁵ and was presided over by the Minister for Revenue. He was helped by a large staff of clerks at the capital in keeping regular accounts of the income of the government from the various districts and sources. Evidently the administration of this branch was divided into a large number of small departments over each of which was a superintendent. The revenue of every district was generally in charge of an officer appointed by the government. Orders conveying the remissions of taxes or the imposition of new ones were communicated to him. Sōmappa Uḍaiyār, the Mahāpradhāni of Kampaṇa Uḍaiyār, and Viṭṭapparaśar, the treasurer, made a gift of tolls for providing (daily) a flower garland and a lamp to the temple of Edirkoṇḍaperumāḷ at Kurumavi (a village) in Puḷināḍu. The order was issued to Meydēvar who was in charge of the taxes of Puḷināḍu.²⁹⁶ Another inscription from the Hoskote taluk in the Bangalore district makes mention of the tax collectors of the Eṟumuraināḍu and the customs officer of the Muḷuvāynāḍu.²⁹⁷ Similarly we get reference in an epigraph at Śrīperumbudūr (Cg.) to the officer called the controller of tolls to whom an order was sent by Śrīgirinātha Uḍaiyār to collect on behalf of the king a duty of one paṇam on every loom in the tirumaḍaivilāgam.²⁹⁸