Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.124

c8.124

If Nuniz is to be believed, human sacrifices were not rare under the Vijayanagar kings. Regular prisons were maintained where the prisoners were lodged. Whenever there was felt any necessity for the sacrifice of human beings the prisoners ‘who deserved death’ were ordered to be executed. Thus Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya, when he was told that the Gods demanded some human sacrifice for the successful termination of his big irrigation scheme, ‘sent to bring hither all the men who were his prisoners, and who deserved death, and ordered them there to be beheaded.⁷⁰ This would indicate that Kṛṣṇa Rāya acted up to his principles as laid down in his *Amuktamālyada* as far as practicable. Not till he was forced to the necessity of offering a human sacrifice for the successful termination of a big irrigation scheme did he think of executing even those who deserved death. He was satisfied with their imprisonment. The infliction of capital punishment on criminals is also mentioned by Abdur Razāk. Speaking about the conspirators who plotted to murder Dēva Rāya II, he says: "They were either flayed alive, or burnt to death, or destroyed in some other fashion, and their families were altogether exterminated. The person who had brought the invitation was also put to death."⁷¹ A Jesuit letter of A.D. 1601 shows how certain offences were punishable with imprisonment, irrespective of the status or dignity of the offender. Guerreiro says: "The case was striking in this that it should happen to the chief Governor of the Empire, who so earnestly opposed the grant ordered by the King from the revenue of those villages for the ministers of the Church. It was just he who was accused before the King of having robbed the royal rents and treasure; he was disgracefully deprived of his functions and dignity. And when asked by the King for one of his rings that had cost 50,000 pagodas, he denied the charge and swore on his parents, he had never taken the ring. By many witnesses he was declared guilty of the theft of the ring and of three hundred thousand pagodas; so he is now imprisoned."⁷²