Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c9.s2.13

c9.s2.13

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