Court Life Under The Vijayanagar Rulers

Title: Court Life Under The Vijayanagar Rulers

Author: Madhao P Patil

Publisher: B.R Publishing Corp, New Delhi 1999 (First)

ISBN: 81-7646-94-X

Pages: 212

Disappointing work. Nothing to comment  upon. Favourably. Lot of data. No organisation….Oops! Reading Patil for long has made me unconsciously copy his writing style! Well, this is what one should expect from this book made from well researched source material, but fails to enthuse the reader owing to its equally poor style, language and presentation.

The history of Vijayanagara is gathered from the vivid accounts left by foreign travellers, merchants and diplomats who visited it in its heyday. Noted among those are Abdur Razzaq, Domingo Paes and Fernando Nuniz, who have prepared extensive descriptions of various aspects of the court life. The first chapter of the gives in brief the political history of the empire, from its beginnings in 1336, right upto 1672 when the flame petered out. The narration is however, not impartial and the religious sentiments of the author intermixes making the task of history writing skewed. The pace is rather forced and the language is mediocre.

Second chapter details court administration with many practises and customs explained. The kings were pleasure loving as seen in Krishnadevaraya’s harem which included 12,000 women of all ages! In addition to this, there were 4,000 women in the palace to wait upon the king. More over, there were 200 elite guards entrusted with no other duty than protecting the king’s person, which were never safe in the three-centuries of Vijayanagara owing court intrigues and successional disputes. The kings seem to be non-vegetarians, as “The Vijayanagar kings were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Except the flesh of cow or oxen, they used to consume all sorts of non-vegetarian variety including rats, cats and lizard, if Nuniz were to be believed” (p.47). The empire was centered on the king and the concept of welfare state was not even risen in the horizon. Krishnadevaraya, the most benevolent and strong soverign among the rulers apportions the tax revenue of the kingdom in the following way, 25% for the king and his entourage, 50% for procuring military accessories including horses and weapons and the remaining 25% to be hoarded in the treasury. The plight of the poor people was very deplorable and the magnificent edifices of Hampi were erected on the dreams and lives of the ordinary subjects the police state had trod roughshod upon. The kings were very superstitious with strict adherence to the advice of astrologers and there is an instance in which Krishnadevaraya put his rajguru on the throne for a day on the counsel given by an astrologer that the day is so inauspicious that even death may result to the person who sits on the throne.

The third chapter is on court patronage to poets, musicians and other artists. The kings donated freely to temples and brahmins but that was about all as far as their charities went. The rayas were not bigoted as instanced by Venkata II gifting two villages tax-free to Fr. Simon de Sa Rector for construction of churches and the lavish gifts given to the darghah at Nagore. Krishnadevaraya, himself no mean scholar greatly encouraged poets, painters and other artists. Great literati known as Ashtadiggajas (eight great elephants) in his court were, Peddanna, Timmanna, Dhurjati, Nallanna, Ramrajbhushan, Ramkrishna, Pingali, Surrana and Rudra. Even though the name of Purandaradasa, known as the father of Carnatic music is heard in association to Vijayanagar empire, his name is not mentioned anywhere in the book.

Vijayanagar court was ripe with intrigue at all times. Even the practice of consecrating Yuvaraja (crown prince) was followed, it never alleviated the succession struggles which ensued at the death of a reigning monarch. There were several instances of regicide and fratricide. King Virupaksha was slayed by his son, Sadashiva was assassinated by Venkata who ascended the throne as Venkatapathi II. In addition of these, the two sons of Saluva Narasimha, Tirumaladeva, Venkatadri, Hoje Tirumala, Sadashiva and Ranga III were also killed while attempts on the life of Krishnadevaraya and Devraya didn’t succeed. Even though the kings were ambivalent on religious concepts, the animosity between Virasaivas and Vaishnavites in the court added fuel to the intrigues. Sometimes, the king encouraged the tussles between nobles in the belief that the nobility would stay divided which enhanced the royal power. Little did he know that the empire suffered from such internal bickerings.

Tenali Rama, much boosted by folk tales in his power and esteem, however finds mention in the book. Tenali Ramlinga, who later changed his name to Ramkrishna Kavi, composed shrine epic such as Ghatikachal-mahatmyamu, Panduranga mahatmyamu etc. (p.103). He switched to Vaishnava faith later. He was well known for his practical jokes, one of which was, Tenali Ramakrishna, the celebrated poet was very famous for his wry and practical humour. Once he obtained a horse from Krishnadevaraya for training and received an allowance from the treasury. But he starved the animal in a small room with only a chink to admit light and air. On the inspection day, he requested the king to send someone to fetch the animal since he couldn’t lead it as it had grown very fat and vicious on account of over feeding. Krishnadevaraya sent one of his muslim officers. Tenali instructed the sardar to peep through the chink. As his beard got into the chink, the horse, mistaking it for grass tugged at it causing much pain to the sardar.

The book gives an exhaustive list of poets and writers in South India during the period of the empire and who had accepted beneficence from the Kings and other nobles. This seems to be the only good point as far as the book is concerned.

The downsides of the work are many. No maps are included to illustrate the geographical frontiers and the direction from which opposition came. Even though Krishna-Tungabhadra doab is mentioned periodically, without a good map there is no way to find which place the author refers to. The book seems to be the doctoral thesis of the author as the description is not lively, dull, uninteresting and the style is often expository. Sometimes, one paragraph extends up to four pages as in page numbers 89-92 and 95-97. The book is strewn with needless repetitions, the epilogue being nothing but a summary of what is written in the previous chapters. Amuktamalyada, the poem composed by Krishnadevaraya is mentioned at about half-a-dozen instances, always with the same phrases. The language is poor and riddled with lot of spelling mistakes and as such cannot be presented before foreign readers.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star