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JUNE, 1915)
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
113
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA.
JY V. RANGACHARI, M.A., L.T., MADRAS.
(Continued from page 73.)
CHAPTER III.
SECTION VI.
The Naik Administrative System. W HILE Visvanatha and his minister placed the Polygar system on a definite basis, they
were also statesmanlike enough to organize a system of strong and efficient central administrative machinery. In this work of organizing a central government, they were indeed not original. They did not interfere, for example, with the absolutism of the monarch, or rather of his representative, the Nâik ; but they seem to have succeeded to a very large exter.t in establishing such a system as to impress on the ruler a certain amount of moral, if not legal, responsibility. He was, for instance, to place himself under the advice of able ministers and the influence of public opinion. He was to exercise his powers through six ministers or departmental heads, who held their offices for life, unless their conduct provoked the displeasure of their monarch with the loss of their office. These were the Mantri or Prime Minister, the Dalavai 40 or Commander-in-Chief, the Pradhani or Finance Minister, the Rayasam or Private Secretary of the King, the Kanakkan or Accountant-General, and the Sthanapati or Head of the Diplomatic Department. The Mantri, says the Manavala Narayana Satakam, was to advise the king on all affairs of State, on the proceedings to be issued and the proclamations to be made. As Mr. Nelson says, the two offices of Mantri and Dalavậi remained originally distinct, but in the time of Visvanatha I. they were amalgamated51 into one office. The great statesman Aryanatha Mudali was, as has been already mentioned, invested with the seals and rings of both these offices. The Daļavâi thereby became the supreme civil and military officer of the State. Next to the king he was the greatest man in the country ; his voice in consequence had great weight with the king, and though the latter was not legally bonnd by his counsels, he rarely went against them. It seems that the office of Daļavai, the most coveted in the State, was generally, though not universally, held by Brahmans. At the beginning of the Naik history, it was indeed held by the great statesman and soldier Aryanatha Mudali, but the majority of his successors were Brahmans. We do not know who succeeded Aryanatha Mudali in his exalted office, on his death in 1600. For thirty years there is a blank. Then emerges, in the reign of Tirumal Naik, that great and dominant figure, the gallant R&mappaiya, the ideal soldier, the second builder of the Setu, the subjugator of the Setupati, the conqueror of Mysore, the friend of the Râya, the favourite of the Naik, the hero of the Brahmans. On his death about 1655 his mantle fell on his unworthy son, Siva Ramaiya, who, not wanting in the capacity of his father, lacked his fidelity to the king, and was consequently deservedly disgraced and, we may be sure, dismissed. The next Dalavâi, Linganna Naik, was, as his name shews, a Tóttiya. A very troublesome and ambitious individual, he was the source of every domestic plot and the instigator of every foreign invasion in the early part of
49 Dal (Canarese)Farmy. Dalavdi therefore means General. But the word, points out Wilks, is gometimes translated as Minister, Regent, etc. See Wilk's Mysore, I, p. XI foot-note.
50 See the O.H. MSS. Vol. II, appendix for some extracts from this work. There is a very cheap Tamil edition available in the bazears for a penny. See also Rais. Catal., Vol. III and Nadura Manual.
51 See his Madura Nanual.
