Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.26

c8.26

Having described the nature of the laws of the Hindus and how far the Vijayanagar kings adhered to their spirit, we may examine here the judicial organisation in the period. The first problem that presents itself to us is how far the courts and laws of the Hindus that were in existence in ancient India were allowed to continue during the Vijayanagar period. Wilson who examined this question came to the conclusion that the regulations that were made for and followed in the ancient Hindu courts could be assigned "to a period not long subsequent to the Code of Manu, if not contemporary."¹⁵ In this connection the views of Mountstuart Elphinstone are also of great interest. Speaking about the administration of justice in his own day he says: "The regular administration of justice by permanent courts which is provided for in Manu and of which the tribunals with their several powers are recorded by later writers, is hardly observed by any Hindu government. The place of those tribunals is in part taken by commissions appointed in a summary way by the prince, generally granted by motives of court favour and often composed of persons suited to the object of the protecting courtier. In part, the courts are replaced by bodies of arbitrators, called Panchayets........"¹⁶ But there are some who hold a different view on this question. They think that the ancient Hindu courts continued to remain in force during the Vijayanagar period as well. On this question a recent writer has certain interesting observations to make. Speaking about the Parāśaramādhavīyam of Mādhava, he says, that that treatise though purporting to be a part of Mādhava's commentaries on Parāśarasmṛti, is not really based on that Smṛti, for Parāśara did not treat of law at all; that Mādhava supplied the omission by collecting what was said on the subject in the other Smṛtis, and that his dissertation is a digest of jurisprudence based on those Smṛtis. He adds that Mādhavācārya had a great part in laying the foundations of the Vijayanagar empire at the commencement of the fourteenth century of the Christian era, and since at that time the Muhammadans had not yet succeeded in extending their rule to the south of the river Kṛṣṇā, we may fairly presume that the procedure which he describes in his work was in use in his time in South India at any rate.17