Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.t2.12

c7.t2.12

As for the total income of the state, Rice says it was 81 crores of Avakōṭi cakras or pagodas⁵³ an estimate arrived at by him on a study of the manuscripts collected by Colonel Mackenzie. The *Karṇāṭaka Rājākkaḷ Savistāra Caritram* or *A General History of the Indian Peninsula* states that during the time of Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya the amount of revenue that had to be paid to the imperial treasury by eastern Karṇāṭaka (as distinguished from Mysore, etc.) was three crores of rupees.⁵⁴ Varthema, speaking about the revenues of the kings of Vijayanagar, says: "This king of Narasinga is the richest king I have heard spoken of" and in another place says: "His Brahmins, that is, his priests, say that he possesses a revenue of 12,000 pardai per day."55 Paes who visited Vijayanagar in 1520 says that Kṛṣṇa Rāya after retaining enough for his expenses and the expenses of the houses of his wives of whom he had 12,000, put in his treasury every year ten million *pardaos*.⁵⁶ Nuniz is of opinion that the feudatory nobles in the Vijayanagar empire paid to the king every year sixty lakhs of *pardaos* as royal dues, which was half of the gross income from the lands under the feudatories (120 lakhs or 12 millions of *pardaos*).⁵⁷ According to the *Burhān-i-Ma'sir* the revenue of "the accursed infidel" Sadāśiva Rāya was 120,000,000 *hūns*.⁵⁸ Even about A.D. 1611 Vijayanagar claimed good revenues. Antoine Vico for instance says: "The great Nayak of Madura and those of Tanjore and Ginji are themselves tributaries of Bisnagar, to whom they pay or have to pay an annual tribute of six to ten million francs."59 Besides, the royal demesne yielded some revenue to the kings.