Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.75

c8.75

(a) Civil Cases: About the exact judicial procedure we are not able to get much information. The little that is available indicates that civil cases were generally decided by the popular courts more by arbitration than by a detailed and dispassionate examination of all the legal points involved in a case. Even such difficult and complicated cases like the right of succession to a property were decided by the local magnates by means of arbitration. For instance a copper-plate record dated A.D. 1533 from Madura registers the settlement of a dispute between two brothers as to who among them was the elder. The younger Śiṇṇa Vaḍāvāḍa Tummiśi Nāyakkar having been declared in an assembly consisting of eighteen Koḍangai Nāyakkars and Polygars to be the junior, the elder Rāma Rāya Tummuśi Nāyakkar granted him some lands.⁴⁴ Then again when in A.D. 1363 the people of Hedḍūrṇāḍ and the temple ācāryas had certain disputes with the śūris as to the boundaries of the lands belonging to the Pārśvadēva temple of Taḍatāḷa in Hedḍūrṇāḍ, the great minister Nāgaṇṇa, a few araśus and the Jaina Mallappa decided them by arbitration. They summoned the elders of the three cities and the eighteen Kampaṇas, and held an enquiry in the Āraga Cāvaḍi. They made the nāḍ agree that the lands belonged to the temple, fixed the boundaries according to former custom, and gave a śāsana to that effect.⁴⁵ According to an inscription in the Sira taluk in the Tumkūr district, it was ruled by the king as follows: “If a caste dispute arises in the country they will summon the parties before them and advise them. And as they have the power of punishment, the parties must act according to the advice given. This proceeding to be free of cost to them.”⁴⁶