Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.128

c8.128

It was not, however, unusual that even such grave crimes as murder went only lightly punished. According to an inscription at Basrūr in the South Canara district dated A.D. 1444-45, the Nakharadavāru (merchants) of Dharmapaṭṇa atoned for their murder of two men of the Śeṭṭi community by making a gift of money at one *honnu* (gold) in every ten realised by them. This they did as a *prāyaścitta* at the instance of several śeṭṭikāras of Paḍavakēri while Timmaṇa Oḍeya was governing the Bārakūru rājya.⁷³ In 1480 the residents of a few villages decided that the three individuals, who with the help of one Malavarāyaṇ caused disturbance and killed twenty men, should each endow one mā of land to the local temple as tax-free *devadāna*.⁷⁴ Certain offences were punished with excommunication and loss of caste. In such cases the property of the accused was also forfeited to the palace.⁷⁵