Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s2.6

c7.s2.6

At Vṛddhācalam in the South Arcot district the Valangai and Iḍangai sects went a step farther and decided to offer civil resistance to the government. "The officers of the king (rājanya) and the owner of jīvitas oppressed the people . . . and the Kāṇiyālan and the Brahmans took the rājagaram (taxes). Hence the two castes decided that they should not give them shelter, or write accounts for them, or agree to their proposals, and that if any one proved a traitor to the country (by acting against the settlement) he should be stabbed."³²¹ The inscription which records this, though fragmentary, clearly shows that there was great oppression in the levy and the collection of taxes on the part of the officers of the king. A record at Korukkai in the Tanjore district registers an agreement among the members of the Valangai and Iḍangai sects who formed themselves into an organised body to offer civil resistance against bad and oppressive government, and resolved as follows: "Because they did not tax us according to the yield of the crop, but levied the taxes unjustly . . . . . we were about to run away. Then we realised that because we of the whole country (maṇḍalam) were not united in a body, we were unjustly dealt with . . . . Hereafter we shall just pay what is just and in accordance with the yield of the crops and we shall not pay anything levied unlawfully." Then they fixed the rates of taxes to be paid on the wet and dry produce of lands, on the produce of trees, such as jack, areca, palmyra, plantains, sugarcane, on red lotus, artemesia, castor plants, sesamum, turmeric, ginger, etc. and on professions of fishermen, potters, weavers, barbers, washermen, oilmongers, toddydrawers and painters.³²²