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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s7: The Doctrine of Political Deliverers as Yugāvatāras in Vijayanagara

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s7

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The Doctrine of Political Deliverers as Yugāvatāras in Vijayanagara

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In the imagination of the Hindus the Vijayanagara Empire (1346-1646) was like the subsequent Maratha Empire a bulwark of Hindu culture established against the avalanche of Islam. The founders of these Empires were therefore esteemed as veritable *avatāras* or incarnations of Lord Kṛiṣṇa. Bukka I. (1343-76), the virtual founder of the Vijayanagara State, is described in an inscription as one in whom the God "reappeared" to deliver the world of the Mlechchhas.³⁰ This account embodies the famous declaration of Lord Kṛiṣṇa in the *Gītā* to the effect that it is whenever *dharma* finds itself in jeopardy that he appears age by age.

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³⁰ B. A. Saletore: *Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire*, Val. I. (Madras 1934), pp. 8-10, Vol. II. (Madras 1934), pp. 1, 5, 272, 273.

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Folk-poetry as that embodied in the *Madhurāvijayam* associates the exploits of the Hindus with the interventions of the gods. The manner in which the magic sword of the prospective deliverer of the Hindus from the thraldom of the Moslems came into his hands is described in this Telugu poem in the mystical manner of the Irish poet Yeats. "O Sovereign, once upon a time the divine Viśvakarmā, gathering the splinters from the weapons of all the *Devas* (gods) and melting them together," says a strange woman to the son of Bukka I, "shaped this strange sword and presented it to Parameśvara for gaining victory over the *Daityas* (demons)." The fortunes of this magic sword,—like those of that in the Arthurian legend,—are then narrated briefly. The young prince is finally presented with it with the following words: "By wielding this weapon," says the strange woman, "you will attain unabating vigour and the weapons of the enemy will become powerless against you. Just as Kṛiṣṇa slew Kamsa in Mathurā in olden times, O king! do you proceed now to the southern Mathurā and slaughter the Mussalman king, the enemy of the world.''

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Equally deified in folk-imagination was Kṛiṣṇa Deva Rāya the Great (1509-20) under whom the Vijayanagara Empire witnessed the zenith of its expansion. In the *Vyāsayogacharitam* the poet Somanātha describes the monarch's death as the departure of Lord Kṛiṣṇa from the ken of mankind at the end of His *avatārahood*.

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A private Tamil inscription of 1380 has its chief item of prayer as the exercise of ''universal sovereignty'' by Bukka Rāya. ''Universal dominion'' is sought for Deva Rāya in an inscription of 1428 associated with merchants.

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We are to understand that Hindu positivism popularized in folk-tradition the doctrine of political deliverers or ''world-conquerors'' as being none other than *Yugāvatāras* or Gods in human form. The secularization of alleged religious texts or rather the interpretation of alleged god-lore in terms of worldly personalities and human exploits was in the very blood of the Hindu masses and classes. The records from Vijayanagara as from the Maratha annals should furnish concrete illustrations as to how a scientific and critical student of Hindu social institutions and theories ought to interpret them. Those who would follow the folk-tradition of India through the ages are not likely to be shunted off into misleading tracks by mere names of gods and goddesses and the atmosphere of religious ritualism or metaphysical speculations. It is the things ''human, all-too human'' that they would encounter in Hindu institutions and theories. Hindu religion is nothing if it is not in the main a handmaid to worldly progress and material prosperity.

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