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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1916
In Krishṇaraya's time we find a more complex religion held by the ruler. Krishņa raya's conquests are of the widest range for this Ruling House. His marches began and ended at the sea-borders of Peninsular India. His armies swept like the powerful summer zephyr from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and, like the Northeast monsoon-gale of October, swept across from Ganjam and Simhachalam in the North to Malabar and Ceylon in the South. His ir.scriptions we find in the temple of Nrisimha at Simhachalam and in those of Madura and Tinnevelly. One of his records at Ponnam balam (i.e., Chidambaram) informs us that he had marched up to Simhachalam, where he planted a pillar of victory, and sweeping southward he halted at Chidambaram, on his way probably to the feet of India. At Chidambaram he built a tower for the temple of Nataraja. The Vaishnava temples of Aruļaļa-Perurnal (i. e. Varadaraja) at Conjeeveram, of Srt-Venkatesa at Tirupati and of Ra ganâtha at Srirangam, to the orthodox known as Tiruvarangam, and the Saiva temple at Chidambaram contain inscriptions, which record his devotional visits and grants to them. When he recovered the fort of Udayagiri from the Gajapati king, who was just then in temporary revolt against the Vijayanagara throne, he found a beautiful image of Krishna in one of the humble temples there. This he carried with extreme love and veneration to his capital, Vidyanagara, and there he had a temple erected especially for enshrining this image. It is not unlikely that the god, being of his own name, evoked special love and veneration from Kțishṇadêva. Here is an instance of sctive royal enterprise in the matter or manifesting special leaning to Vaishọaviem.
Krishnaraya was eclectic not only thus far. His eclecticism was of & wider circum. ference than that of any monarch on the Vijayanagara throne, and that he was warmly devoted to Virgipaksha is established by the taste he has displayed in putting up his inscription at Virupaksha's shrine. The Red-slab record, the only one of its kind put up in this temple, or for the matter of that, in all this part of the country, is testimony enough to this At the top of this slab are cut the linga, the bull, and the universally appearing sun and cresceut. That an inscription of this king, relating to Virupaksha, would be consigned to a red slab which is unique among inscribed slabs, shows that Krishộadeva way whole hearted in his devotion to that god. To me it suggests itself, that the poetically minded Krishņadêvarêya must have taken special pains to secure a peculiar slab for recording this inscription
To this combination of devotion to Siva and Vishnu, Krishộadêva added a no less warm devotion to Vithoba. The worship of Vithoba is a phase of Vaishnavism that had its origin, development and numerous following in the Maharashtra country only. As & phase of devotional belief, it is only an importation into and not indigenous to the Karnata country. Several forms of Vishyu had heen known and worshipped in the latter, but not Vithôba. He was only a special development of the Vaishne viem of the Maharashtra. And the fact of the consecration of Vithôba by Krishṇadeva, in a temple specially built by him, which is the flower of the sculptural art patronised by the Vijayanagara court, opens to us a new page in the religious creed and the consecrational enterprise of that ruler.
During the projection of his conquesta into Mahârâ shtra Krishộadeva failed not to appreciate the influence of this deity in that part of the country. If the scale and highly artistio nature of a shrine could alone determine the strength of the devotion of the builder to the enshrined, we migit say that Vithoba had the highest place in Krishnadeva's heart. Wonderful are the structures making up this huge temple. The choicest blossoms of the soulptor's fancy have been realised in this shrine. In one place we gaze up on the stonecut medallions in the ceilings of the mantapas ; in an other place we are accosted by the
1 We cannot, even on this basis, conclude that Krishnadeva's ishtadaivatam was Vithoba. From Alasani Peddana's Prologue to his Manucharitram, we learn that Krishnar&ya was attached to Venkatesa. This is also oonfirmed by the fact that copper images of this king and his two queens are found set up in the temple at Tirumalai (North Aroot Dt. For the notice of these by the Madras Epigraphist on page 6 of his reports for 1904 and 1913.
