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270
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1911.
If this was the system followed in a province like Canara, far away from the capital of the kingdom, we may take it that it was far more rigorous in near-lying tracts. At any rate, it seems pretty probable that Harihara I. and his successors would have stuck to the system propounded by their first prime-minister, who, according to tradition and inscriptions, was chiefly instrumental in bringing their kingdom into existence. More than this, Wilks would seem to infer that the latter's work Parūsara-Mddhaviya, was written at the instance of the first Vijayanagara king ratber than for them. However that may be, it appears that more than even what is declared in Madhava's text was usually taken by Krishnaraya, if we may believe the incalculable extent of his revenues, a. stated by his foreign contemporaries. For instance, Domingos Paes, the Portuguese trader, who Bojourned in Vijayanagar about 1520," gives the following summary of the revenue resources of Křishğaraya :-"Should any one ask," he says, "what revenue this king possesses, and what his treasure is that enables him to pay so many troops"--Paes says, he maintained continually a million fighting troops, of which 35,000 were cavalry in armour, besides many elephant _"since he has so many and such great lords in his kingdom, who, the greater part of them, have themselves revenues," I answer thus:-" These captains, whom he has over these troops of his, are the noble of his kingdom; they are lords, and they hold the city, and the towns and villages of the kingdom there are captains amongst them who have a revenue of a million and a million and a half pardaoss, others a hundred thousand pardaos, others two hundred, three hundred or five hundred thonsand pardaos, and as each one has revenue so the king fixes for him the number of troops he must maintain, in foot, horse, and elephants. These troops are always ready for duty whenever they may be called out and wherever they have to go; and in this way he has this million of fighting men always ready ......................... Besides maintaining these troops, each captain has to make his annual payment to the king, and the king has his own salaried troops to whom he gives pay. He has eight hundred elephants attached to his person, and five hundred horses always ready in his stables, and for the expenses of these horses and elephants he has devoted the revenues that he recieves from the city of Bisnaga. You may well imagine how great these expenses may be, and besides these that of the servante, who have the care of the horses and elephants; and by this you will be able to judge what will be the revenue of this city."47 Besides these captains and lords having large territories and gresi revenues, the king, adds Paes, had vassal kings, and that whenever a son or a daughter was born to him all his nobles offered him a present of money and jewels of price as also on his each birthday : He moreover adds that Krishộariya, after retaining enough for his expenses and for the expenses in the houses of his wives" of whom he had "near him twelve thousand," put in his treasury "every year ten million pardaos."
2 Sewell's A Forg. Emp, 19, 20, 21. See also pp. 299-300, where the Portuguese trader, Nunis, in his Chronicle written about 1536-37, gives the same story.
Rioe's Mysore, I, 314-45. Burnell's Ddyavibhaga of Madhava Introd. X and XI. Fleet in J. B. B. and R. A. 8. XII, 340.
Fleet in Indian Antiquary IV. 206. Madhava's brother S&yana was also minister to Kampa, who reigned between A. D. 1943 and 1355.
Sewell's A Forg. Emp. 28.
Fleet in J. (Bomb.) B. R. A. 8. XII. 339. In the Colophon of Madhaviya-dhattuvșitti, Sayandcharya is desoribed as the prime minister of Sangama, the son of Kampa, monarch of the Eastern, Southern and Western Oceans; the son of Adyada; and the uterine brother of Madhava." See Roth's Ed. of Wilson's
Works, V. 192 note. *3 Sewell' 4 Forg. Emp. Introd. vi.
** Ibid. pp. 281-82. Ibid. pp. 147 to 151, for some very interesting remarks by Sowell on the immense armies employed by Indian kings.
46 Pagodas: a pagoda, according to Yule and Burnell being of the value of, at the period treated of, about ... 60. See Hobson Jobson, p. 637, and Sewell's 4 Forg. Emp. 270-71, f. n. 2.
11 Sowell's A Forg. Emp. 280-81.
