Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s2.22

c7.s2.22

Nuniz has something to say about the nature of the revenue collections made under the Vijayanagar emperors. He says : "For this reason the common people suffer much hardship those who hold the lands being so tyrannical..... As already said, all the land belongs to the king and from his hand the captains hold it. They make it over to the husbandmen who pay nine-tenths to their lord ; and they have no land of their own, for the kingdom belongs entirely to the king ".³³⁴ Nuniz may be wrong both in this calculation and in his statement that all lands belonged to the king. Sewell comments on this observation of the chronicler thus : "Whether true or not this statement, coming as it does from a totally external source, strongly supports the view often held that the ryots of South India were grievously oppressed by the nobles when subject to Hindu government. Other passages in both these chronicles each of which was written quite independently of the other confirm the assertion here made as to the mass of the people being ground down and living in the greatest poverty and distress."335