Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.21

c8.21

In the modern day, it is said that after a period of twelve years one's claim to a property, if it is in the possession of another, becomes debarred by the law of limitation. Almost the same law prevailed in the Vijayanagar days. Mortgaged lands could be in the name of the mortgagee only for a period of twelve years. In Ś. 1565, one Siddha Rāmappa Nāyaka, a subordinate of Śrī Raṅga III issued an order that the Kāpus, who had held any temple or Brahman lands on "mortgage by possession" (*bhōga-āyakam*), should restore the lands to the original owners after twelve years of enjoyment without demanding any money from them, giving them at the same time written deeds (*bhōga patra*) recording the reconveyance. The order was issued with the consent of the Reddis, Karṇams and the other people of the place (*sthala*). As the Government Epigraphist remarks, "the legislation appears evidently to have been made as a remedy against the conveyance by the owners of these lands for long periods to the Kāpus in consideration of the loans paid on such usufructory mortgages decidedly favourable to the mortgagee. Even now the temple lands in many cases are mortgaged under similar conditions to the great disadvantage and detriment of the charities intended by their original donors."¹³