Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.18

c8.18

But the people at times formed themselves into associations to oppose the tyranny of the ruling sovereigns or their agents, and considered it treason against the country if the people submitted to "petty coercion and oppression" by the government. It has been noted that according to a record at Vṛddhācalam in the South Arcot district the Valangai and Iḍangai sects of the place met together and decided that since they were oppressed by the officers of the king and the owners of *jīvitas*, and taxes were demanded of them by the Brahmans and the Kāṇiyāḷan, they should not give shelter to them or write accounts for them, and also declared that one who acted against their agreement was a traitor to the country and hence was to be stabbed.¹¹ Reference has also been made earlier to another inscription from Peṇṇāḍam also in the same district according to which the ninety-eight subsections of the Valangai and Iḍangai classes living in certain districts reached an agreement not to submit to unjust taxation among other things, and to declare some acts as constituting *nāṭṭudrōham* and punish them accordingly.¹² Though *nāṭṭudrōham* is not defined here, it is implied that the doing of particular acts may be held to amount to treason against the country and may be punished accordingly. Thus the interpretation of the law of treason differed with the body or authority that had to do it. While the king and the government considered an act not conforming to a rule or not following a law as amounting to treason against the king and the people, the people who had certain grievances against the government were of opinion that to obey the government which did not care for the interests of the governed amounted to treason against the community, which according to them was of a graver nature than treason against the constituted authority.