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VIJAYANAGARA'S PLEDGE
297 merely in the circles of the Śrīvaisnavas but also in those of the Vira śaivas. The little principality of Belür (Velāpuri), over which king Venkatādri ruled in A.D. 1638, had come into existence in the days of Era Kışņappa Nāyaka, the Hadapa (or betel-pouch bearer) of Krşņa Deva Rāya the Great of Vijayanagara. And it is especially gratifying to observe that the Vijayanagara example of justice should have been copied by one of its feudatories, and maintained with equity even in an age when the once-powerful Vijayanagara authority was on the decline and the fortunes of the great mediæval House eclipsed by political calamities. We may appreciate this better when we remember that Velāpuri, only six years after the above judgment by the Maha-mahattu had been given, became the seat of king Ranga Rāya (III), the last of the noteworthy Vijayanagara monarchs, with the aid of one of his powerful vassal Śivappa Nāyaka of Bednür.2
1. E. C. V, Intr., p. 33.
2. Rice, My. & Coorg, p. 122. On the harmonious relations that existed among the other communities the Brahmans, the Sthānikas, the Pañcālas, the Sețţis, etc., in the Vijayanagara age, read Saletore, S. P. Life., II., pp. 355-356, 358
