Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c8.89

c8.89

Though great value was attached to human evidence, sometimes divine help was sought in deciding certain cases which involved great legal and technical difficulties and hence could not be decided easily, or when there was not sufficient evidence to prove or disprove a case, or where a party demanded that the court should not content itself with an examination of the human evidence alone. In such cases trials by ordeal were resorted to. If the party who underwent the ordeal was not seriously injured, or recovered from the injury within a particular period, he was considered to have won his case; if it happened the other way, he was said to have lost his case. An undated record found at Mēlattāṇiyam in the Pudukkōṭṭai State records the settlement of a dispute between the Paraiyars and the Paḷḷars of the village about the enjoyment of certain privileges exclusively by them. It is said that one Vīra Śiṇṇu Nāyakkar decided the dispute by asking the parties to dip their hands in boiling ghee and that the Paḷḷars came out unscathed.⁵³ An epigraph in the Yēlandūr Jāgir in the Mysore State records a dispute among certain castes that was decided in a similar way. The inscription which records this states that in the time of Rāma Rāja Nāyaka the headman of the potters granted a charter to the following effect: "When the barbers and washermen said that for potters paring of toes and nails and tying on the upper cloth (probably on marriage occasions) are not allowed, the chiefs of the potters said that they were, and gained victory by the ordeal of dipping their hands in boiling ghee before the God Divyaliṅgēśvara in Haradanahaḷḷi."⁵⁴ An inscription of A.D. 1664 found at Abbinahole in the Hiriyūr taluk records that the śenabovas of Dummaḷalu, Kambaya's son Muduraṅga and four others, (named) with the consent of their wives, sons, agnates, heirs and the sāvantas of four villages, granted to the śenabovas of Guḍa-Abbinahoḷesthala, namely Gauraṇṇa's son Sadāśivayya and others (four named), a jayarēkhapatrikā (certificate of victory) as follows: "When we represented to the assembly consisting of the gauḍas, śēnabōvas, śeṭṭis and paṭṭaṇasvāmis of Agali, Muduvidu, Raṇṭa vaḷulu and other surrounding villages that the kāṇāci pertaining to the office of shanbog of Guḍasthala belonged to us, judgment was pronounced in your favour. Declining to abide by the decision of the assembly, we proposed to settle the dispute by the ordeal of dipping the hand in boiling ghee in the presence of the goddess Ellamma of Koḍihaḷḷi. Accordingly, by order of the chief, ghee was sent for by Sidapa Devaru of Haraṭi and others (named), boiled and placed before us, and when we put our hand into it saying that "the kāṇāci is ours" the hand was burnt and we lost our case while you won yours by escaping injury. We therefore give you this jayarēkhā. Justice being on your side, may you enjoy the office of shanbog for as long as the sun and moon last."55