Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.70

c8.70

Questions affecting the social and religious practices of the people were decided by special officers called samayācāras or dāśaris who were appointed by the government as the censors of morals. The office was farmed out on contract in all the large towns, and credited to public accounts as samayācāra. No religious ceremony or marriage could be undertaken without the permission of these samayācāras. When a dispute arose between the Reḍḍis of Penugoṇḍa and Bodipet as regards inter-marriages among them, and when the matter was represented to Rāma Rāyal and Bukka Rāyal, they held an enquiry into the matter and sent for their guru Tātācārya to decide the question. Tātācārya went into the details of the case and invested the heads of Sujanakula with certain honours for which they promised to make certain specified payments on occasions of marriage. Then marriages were accordingly performed.⁴² Kṛṣnadēva Rāya authorised one Veṅkaṭa Tātayarāja of the Śatamarṣaṇa gotra to make enquiries into the conduct of all the castes owing allegiance to Rāmānuja and to punish delinquents in regard to religious and social matters.⁴³ Thus in the Vijayanagar days the religious teachers also decided certain cases which were of a social and religious character.