Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s2.4

c7.s2.4

Sometimes the authorities were opposed by the people in the levy of the taxes. The local organisations like the village assembly and the Valaṅgai and Iḍaṅgai 98 sects joined together and opposed the rājagaram. On a few occasions after due deliberation they themselves fixed certain rates of taxes which they would pay to the government. In the year 1429 at Tiruvaigāvūr in the Tanjore district, the assembled residents of Parāntakanāḍu and the Valangai and Iḍangai sects arrived at a settlement with regard to the payment of their dues to he king. In the preamble to their decision they traced the reasons for their adoption of that procedure, and said: "From the time of the Kaṇṇaḍiyas (Hoyśālas) the district had been declared to be the jīvitaparru of the (temple) servants; taxes were not collected by one single person; the lands were leased out (aḍavōlai) to other persons and puravari taxes were collected. In this way the whole district came to be ruined." After stating in such a preamble the difficulties the people were suffering under on account of the heavy taxes imposed on them, they fixed the rates of taxes to be levied on their lands taking into account the nature of the tenure under which the lands were held. They finally decided that no body should collect the taxes otherwise than in the schedule without the consent of the assembled body (maṇḍala) of people.³²⁰