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Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c9.s2: Section III. Divisions of the Army

Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c9.s2

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Section III. Divisions of the Army

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In ancient India the army was divided into four divisions, namely, infantry, cavalry, elephants and war chariots. But gradually the chariots fell out of use, and by the days of Śrī Harṣa they had disappeared. The Vijayanagar epigraphs refer only to the other three divisions. A record of A.D. 1347 in the Sorab taluk of the Shimoga district mentions, for instance, that the army of the Kadamba king was composed of horsemen, elephants and foot-soldiers.⁴⁵ The Bitraguṇṭa grant of Saṅgama II mentions him as the lion to the troops of the furious elephants of the lords of elephants and horses and men.⁴⁶ Ibn Baṭūṭa, the Muhammadan traveller, says that the ruler of Hinawr (Honavar), Sultan Jalāl-ad-Dīn, who was a tributary of Haryab (Harihara I), had an army composed of horses and foot.⁴⁷ We have no reference to the chariots in that period. But artillery as a division of the army came into existence in the later Vijayanagar days thus making the division again four.

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⁴⁵ E.C., VIII, Sb. 375.

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⁴⁶ E.I., III, p. 33.

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⁴⁷ Ibn Baṭūṭa, The Broadway Travellers Edn., p. 231.

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But Saletore affirms that the Vijayanagar armies consisted of six divisions. He says: “The Vijayanagar rulers......unintentionally followed the mediaeval precept of Śukra⁴⁸ rather than the classical injunctions which restricted the forces to the four well known names,” and quotes the authority of an inscription of Dēva Rāya I and the Bakhair of Rāma Rāja to support his contention.⁴⁹ The inscription under reference states that “he (Dēva Rāya I) having for a long time carried out a fierce military expedition by order of his father king Harihara accompanied by the six components of the army, reached quickly the city.”⁵⁰ But it must be remarked that it is difficult to infer from the reference to the six “components” in this inscription that the Vijayanagar armies were divided into six divisions. The epigraph merely states that there were six kinds of armies (vidham) and not six divisions (aṅga). The Raghuvamśa of Kālidāsa mentions six kinds of armies. It is said that Raghu with a desire to conquer the directions started with his six kinds of armies.⁵¹ Here the armies referred to are the hereditary (maula), mercenary (bhṛtaka), belonging to guilds (śreṇi), those of an ally (mitra), those of an enemy (amitra), and those of forest tribes (āṭavi). The Vijayanagar inscription in question seems to refer to such variety of the forces that made up the Hindu army and not to its divisions. The Bakhair of Rāma Rāja gives a detailed account of the Hindu forces on the battle-field of Rakṣas Taṅgḍi, and says that there were in them large hosts of horses, camels, elephants, artillery, bulls and foot soldiers.⁵² Though the Vijayanagar armies consisted of these six parts, we do not know if they were engaged in the wars. The camels and bulls must have been only auxiliaries of the main forces that fought in the battle. Nuniz while describing the Hindu forces that marched to the battle of Raicūr says that there were in them many sumpter-mules, asses and oxen, which carried all the supplies and many other burdens such as tents and other things.⁵³ Thus these served only as auxiliaries of the main armies. In the face of such data it is difficult to agree with Saletore in his assertion that there were six divisions in the Vijayanagar armies.

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⁴⁸ Śukra says: “The king should have his infantry four times the cavalry, bulls one-fifth of his horse, camels one-eighth, elephants one-fourth of the camels, chariots half of the elephants and cannon twice the chariots.” (Śukranīti, IV, vii, l. 41, p. 128; Soc. and Pol. Life in the Vij. Emp., I, p. 420). But curiously enough Śukra mentions seven and not six. Saletore tries to overcome the difficulty by remarking, “but in reality Śukra merely gave legal sanction to two of the parts already mentioned as auxiliaries by Kauṭilya—bulls and camels and introduced one new feature—artillery—which was unknown to the age of the Arthaśāstra, Ibid., I, p. 420).

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⁴⁹ Soc. and Pol. Life in the Vij Emp., I p 421.

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⁵⁰ Nel. Ins., I, pp. 4 4 and 7

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⁵¹ Canto IV, v. 27.

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⁵² See Saletore, op. cit., I, pp. 417-18.

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⁵³ Sewell, op. cit., p. 333.

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1. Infantry: A large portion of the armies was made up of foot-soldiers. The largeness was due perhaps to the fact that they consisted of the Vaiśyas and the Śūdras if the injunctions of Kauṭalya had been followed in that period with regard to the recruitment to the armies.⁵⁴ As for the dress of the Vijayanagar soldiers, Ferishta says that they generally went to the battlefield "quite naked and had their bodies anointed with oil to prevent their being easily seized."⁵⁵ But Paes, while describing the review of the forces by the king, says that their dress was very rich with many colours.⁵⁶ But such a glowing description of the splendid appearance and armaments of the troops only suggests that the soldiers appeared in the best of their dress on such ceremonial occasions as the review of the forces by the king. And it is only likely that the common soldiers were dressed very lightly in the battle-fields.⁵⁷ The weapons of warfare used by the Vijayanagar soldiers were swords, arches, bows and arrows, daggers, battle-axes with the shafts, musquets, blunderbusses, javelins, Turkish bows, bombs, spears and fire missiles,⁵⁸ short swords and poignards, which were in girdles.⁵⁹ The *Madhurāvijayam* and the *Sāḷuvābhyudayam* mention the use of such weapons as *śastra* (dagger, sword), *śarāsana* (arrow), *asi* (sword), *karpaṇa* (a kind of spear), *kathārikāstram* (a kind of arrow), *kārmukam* (bow), and *mudgara* (hammer, hammer-like weapon). The soldiers also used the *phalaka* (shield) as a protection against the arrows of the enemies. At times a leather shield (*carmadhāraṇa*) was also used.⁶⁰ Speaking about the shields Nuniz says that they were so large that there was no need for armour to protect the body.⁶¹ The inscriptions also refer to the use of such weapons as the axe,⁶² and dagger.⁶³ From the illustration, in the third volume of the *Epigraphia Carnatica*, of a few weapons of war depicted on the viragals or memorial stones to heroes killed in some fight probably in 1419, we can infer that big knives were used for executing persons, and that swords were also used by the army in those days.⁶⁴

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⁵⁴ Arthaśāstra, Bk. IX, ch. 2.

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⁵⁵ Briggs, The Rise, III, p. 137.

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⁵⁶ Sewell, op cit., p. 277.

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⁵⁷ See Sewell, ibid., p. 277 and fn. 2, where he says: "I have seen on seve-

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⁵⁸ *Ibid.*, p. 277.

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⁵⁹ *Ibid.*, pp. 304 and 328.

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⁶⁰ *Madhurāvijayam*, canto III, vv. 2 and 3. *Sāḷuvābhyudayam*, canto IV, vv. 14, 15, 17, 43; canto VI, vv. 22 and 24.

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⁶¹ Sewell, op. cit., p. 328.

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⁶² 179 of 1910.

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⁶³ E.C., VIII, Sb. 19.

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⁶⁴ See E.C., III, Intro., p. 34.

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2. *Cavalry*: The next important division of the army was the cavalry. In fact the Vijayanagar kings were so strong in their cavalry and able to win success in many of the wars only with its help that they were generally called the *aśvapatis*. Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya himself says that he won a battle against the Sultan of Bidar with the help of the horses.⁶⁵ The foreign policy of the kings was greatly influenced by their keen desire to get a good supply of horses from Ormuz. The pursuit of such a policy was necessitated by the

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⁶⁵ *Āmukta.*, canto I, v. 42.

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ral occasions bodies of men collected together at Vijayanagar and the neighbourhood dressed and armed in a manner which they assured me was traditional. They wore rough tunics and short drawers of cotton stained to a rather dark red colour admirably adapted for forest work, but of a deeper hue than our English Khaki. They grimly assured me that the colour concealed to a great extent the stains of blood from wounds."

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fact that the Carnatic horses were weak and lean and hence not able to bear fatigue.⁶⁶

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⁶⁶ Scott, Ferishta; see Sewell, op. cit., p. 72.
67. Āmukta., canto IV, v. 262.

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About the expenditure of a king, Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya says : “ The expenditure of money which is utilised in buying elephants and horses, in feeding them, in maintaining soldiers, in the worship of Gods and Brahmans and in one's own enjoyment can never be called an expenditure.”67 In another place he suggests that the king should spend half of his income in the maintenance of the army (of which the expenditure on horses formed a large part).⁶⁸ Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya, for instance, purchased every year thirteen thousand horses of Ormuz and country-breds, and kept for himself the best ones.⁶⁹ The Vijayanagar kings valued the horses so much, that, if Nuniz may be believed, Sāḷuva Narasiṁha “ took them dead or alive at three for a thousand *pardaos*, and of those that died at sea they brought him the tail only, and he paid for it just as if it had been alive.”⁷⁰ Though this is perhaps an exaggeration, it shows the great value the Vijayanagar kings placed on horses. According to the account of Barbosa the price of the horses ranged from 400 to 600 *cruzados*.⁷¹ Nuniz, however, gives different prices for them. In one place he says that they were purchased at 4¾ horses per thousand *pardaos*,⁷² while elsewhere he remarks that they were selling at the rate of twelve to fifteen for a thousand *pardaos*.⁷³ Hence as Dames suggests the price of the horse seems to have varied between £78 and 26, or 1170 and 390 in Indian rupees.⁷⁴

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⁶⁸ Ibid., v. 238.

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⁶⁹ Sewell, op. cit., pp. 381-2.

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⁷⁰ Ibid., p. 307 ; for a similar statement of Marco Polo regarding the Pāṇḍyan Kingdom, See K. A. Nilakanta Śāstri, The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom, pp. 192-3.

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⁷¹ About Rs. 2325 to 3375 in the estimate of Dames; Barbosa, I, p. 210.

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⁷² Sewell, op. cit., p. 361 and fn. 2.

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⁷³ Ibid., p. 381.

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⁷⁴ Barbosa, I, p. 210.

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These horses were branded with the king's mark and given over to horsemen with the necessary provisions for every month, and when they died the maintainer of the dead horse was obliged to take the piece of skin containing the king's mark to the Chief Master of the horse so that another was given in its place.75 Each knight was given one horse for his own riding, a groom and a slave girl for his service and the necessary daily supplies. If he did not maintain it properly he was deprived of his horse and given another which was of an inferior quality.⁷⁶

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⁷⁶ Barbosa, I, pp. 210-211.

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The horses were fully caparisoned, had plates on their foreheads, and the cavalrymen wore quilted tunics made of layers of stony raw leather and furnished with iron plates which made them strong, and had their umbrellas of state held over their head.⁷⁷

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⁷⁷ Sewell, op. cit., pp. 275-77. For a note on the quilted tunics see ibid., p. 276, fn. 2.

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3. *Elephants*: Elephants were of great use in ancient and mediaeval warfare, and the Vijayanagar kings used them largely in their battles. Abdur Razāk affirms that there were in the court of Dēva Rāya II more than thousand elephants "lofty as hills and gigantic as demons."78 According to Nikitin large scythes were attached to the trunks of the elephants, and they carried each a citadel in which were twelve men in armour with guns and arrows,⁷⁹ but Varthema would have us believe that each elephant carried only six men, and had long swords attached to its trunk in battle.⁸⁰ With these may be compared the description of Nuniz. He says that from the howdahs of the war elephants fought four men on each side of them, and that on their tusks were fastened sharp knives with which they did great harm.⁸¹ Paes too says that three or four persons used to fight from the back of the war elephants, and he describes the elephants as covered with caparison of velvet and gold and bells and that on their heads were painted faces of giants and other kinds of great beasts.82

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⁷⁹ Major, India, p. 12.

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⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 51.

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⁸¹ Sewell, op. cit., p. 328.

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4. *Artillery*: Artillery had no great importance in the wars of ancient and mediaeval South India. It was only in the Vijayanagar days that it made its appearance on the scenes of battle. It would be interesting to examine here when exactly gun powder began to be used in South India. In describing the battle of 1368 fought between Bukka I and the Bahmani Sultan, the Tohfut-us-Salātīn mentions gun carriages and battering rams.⁸³ Briggs surmised that it was possible that the Muhammadans might have procured the guns in 1368 from the west as they had been used by Edward III eighteen years earlier at the battle of Cressy.⁸⁴ Thus if the Muhammadan work is to be believed it is reasonable to infer that guns were used in 1368. But the works of ancient Nīti literature show that the Hindus were acquainted with the use of guns. Śukrācārya, for instance, mentions them.85 The date of Śukra is a matter of doubt but though he is considered to be a mediaeval writer the fact that he refers to the guns shows that they were in use in that period.

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⁷⁸ Elliot, op. cit., IV, p. 105.

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⁸³ Briggs, The Rise, II, p. 312.

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⁸⁴ Ibid., fn.
85. Śukra, IV, ii, vv. 60-63; Saletore, op. cit., I, p. 431.

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Epigraphical evidence also indicates the use of fire-arms and guns in the Vijayanagar period. An inscription in the Sāgar taluk in the Shimoga district dated A.D. 1441 (?) records that one Mahāprabhu Bayica Gavuḍa was supplying gun powder to the Naḍangiri nāḍ Rāja.⁸⁶ The use of guns in the Vijayanagar period is also proved by the evidence of the chronicle of Nuniz. According to his account several cannons were taken by Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya to Raicūr for the battle.⁸⁷ In the Āmuktamālyada the same emperor speaks of the fortresses "which are garrisoned and provided with engines", which may have included guns.⁸⁸

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⁸⁶ E.C., VIII, Sa.

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⁸⁷ Sewell, op. cit., p. 328.

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⁸⁸ Canto IV, v. 264.

Cites (8)