- The Vijaynagara State can be described as the “war state”. Discuss with reference to the recent historiography that has critiqued this idea.
Ans. The Vijayanagar state was established in 1336, by two brothers, Harihar and Bukka. In its first decades, the various members of the extended Sangama family ruled in semi-autonomous fashion in the different provinces of the small kingdom, extending only from central and southern Karnataka into the interior portion of southern Andhra. In the first half of the 15th century, the state was consolidated within one lineage of the Sangamas. Under Devaraya II, Vijaynagara came to control both the eastern and western coasts of the Deccan and was the pre-eminent state of the peninsula.
The empire is named after its capital city of Vijayanagara, whose ruins surround present day Hampi, now a World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India. The writings of medieval European travelers such as Domingo Paes, Fernao Nunes and Niccolò Da Conti, and the literature in local languages provide crucial information about its history. Archaeological excavations at Vijayanagara have revealed the empire’s power and wealth.
Vijayanagara was able to become dominant only in the 16th century, mostly because of the military abilities of kings like Krishnadeva Raya, and also because its arch rival, the Bahamani Sultanate, had begun to disintegrate into smaller segments. Under the reign of Krishnadeva Raya, the Vijayanagara kingdom attained its largest size and its greatest degree of centralization. However, small tributary states, with their own kings, lingered on in portions of southern Karnataka, southern Tamil Nadu and along the western sea-board. Command over such outlying territories was exercised through elite Vijayanagara warriors called ‘nayakas’ who were entrusted with both military and civilian duties.
Kingship was a hereditary monarchy and there was a considerable increase in the powers and role of the king from the Chola period. Some scholars point out to certain institutional checks on the power of the raya. One was the Council of Ministers– born in the Chola period, now fully developed as an important institution. Second were the Customs and Traditions. Thirdly, Smriti literature- which reminded the king of his religious obligations, and fourthly Local institutions like Assemblies and local officers that checked on the power of the king.
- S. Sharma and other adherents of the Indian feudalism school of thought interpret the proliferation of states in early medieval India as evidence of political disintegration. The main culprit, in their opinion, was the growing popularity of royal land grants, the assignment of rights to income from land, which were first given as charitable endowments to brahmans and then later given in lieu of salary to secular officials. By alienating large tracts of land from royal control and thus fragmenting political authority, this practice allegedly led to the demise of strong central power.
The term “War-State” for Vijayanagara was first used by K.A. Nilakanta Sastri. Vijaynagara is widely acknowledged to be the most militarized of the non-Muslim states of medieval south India. Such a militaristic orientation was a result of the origins of the polity created by an upward mobile warrior lineage in the Deccan. The semi-arid environment hosted people engaging in slash-and-burn agriculture, herding and trade. The upland economy was unstable and therefore encouraged the development of martial skills and the emergence of warlords. By the late 12th century, these warriors were politically dominant throughout the peninsula. Improvements in horse-riding equipments like foot-stirrup, better harnesses, etc. along with availability of quality horses enhanced the destructive capability of the cavalry and led to greater militancy in the peninsula. In the early 14th century, invasions by Khalji and Tughlaq armies dislodged the indigenous warlords, and created a power vacuum and the Sangama founders of Vijayanagara established their kingship. The constant threat from the neighbouring Bahamani kingdom forced Vijayanagara to keep updating its army.
In this time period the emphasis on armed forces was high not just in the subcontinent but throughout the Eurasian landmass. Armies were increasing in size, new weapons were introduced and massive fortifications were erected. Gunpowder, for example, was introduced into 13th century India by the Mongols, who learned about it from the Chinese.
Two principal elements of this “war-state” were the hundreds of local military chiefs or “nayakas” and the other was system of fortifications usually under Brahmana commanders . The Vijaynagara capital was heavily fortified, with its defensive walls intended to fend off invaders physically. Huge earth-packed and stone-faced walls surrounded by the suburbs and nearby villages.
Recent works indicate that these walls enclosed around 650 kilometres, and were manned by soldiers from ramparts, watch-posts and bastions. Catchment basins and reservoirs were part of the protective walls, thus serving daily needs. The ground between the various walled areas of the capital was often filled with large boulders, known as ‘horse-stones’, guaranteeing difficulty to invading infantry or cavalry units.
These fortresses were commanded by Brahmanas and were intended as an insurance against the creation of anti-state coalitions of warriors. Specific land assignments called “bhandarvada” were granted whose income supported forts and fortresses. Often there were conflicts between the nayakas and the rayas which made it imperative for the raya to develop a strong military base to control the nayakas. There was also some amount of in-fighting between the nayakas themselves, hence the increased militarisation of the state.
Public rituals in the capital highlighted the states military prowers. For example the nine-day Mahanavmi festival required compulsory attendance from all the nayaka lords and their armies, and a general muster of the troops was held outside the city. Thus festivals like these were really a celebration of the regime’s economic, political and military success.
The term Nayankara is derived from the word Nayaka, a ancient Sanskrit term denoting a person of prominence and leadership, especially military leadership. The nayakas were military chieftains who joined the king in defensive or predatory warfare and in return enjoyed rights over land given to them. Great and small warriors, nayakas, are presented as the key political figures in the Vijayanagara state. From 15th century on, it was common practice for members of the ruling class to be rewarded with the assignment of nayamkara territories- villages, districts, or even entire provinces over which they had the right to retain certain revenues. Taxes on agricultural produce and the selling or transport of goods as well as the fee on grazing animals, ordinarily owed to the king, were instead given to the man who held the nayamkara assignment. In return, he was expected to use the assigned revenues to maintain troops in readiness for the overlord’s military needs. In his account, Paes describes some duties and privileges of these nayaka lords which included maintaining a stipulated number of troops and to make annual revenue payments to the king, depending on the size of the nayamkara territory they were assigned. In addition, they were expected to present gifts to the king on special occasions. The term ‘amaranayankara’ encapsulates the rights of the nayaka for it signifies office (kara) possessed by a military chief (nayaka) in command (amara) of a body of troops. Other evidence indicated that the lords who did not fulfil their obligations had their nayamkara assignments taken away. The king retained the right to revoke a nayamkara assignment or switch the land included in a nayamkara, to prevent the subordinates from building up a local power and support base and pose a challenge to the king. The nayankara system was thus the central feature of the administrative system of the Vijayanagara state and the role of the nayakas is a controversial issue. While Satish Chandra refers to them as ‘subordinate rulers’, other scholars see them as feudal lords and the nayamkara assignment as their fiefdom. Yet others see the nayakas as agents of a powerful and centralized state.
Burton Stein’s 1980 publication “Peasant State and Society in South India” was a landmark in South Indian historiography. While Nilakanta Sastri had elevated South Indian historiography to national attention, Stein’s controversial work was the first to place South India at the center of theoretical debates on the nature of the Indian state. It has had a tremendous impact on scholarship in the region, generating numerous thoughtful works by its supporters and its critics. His thoughts on Vijayanagara were expanded upon in subsequent works (1985, 1989, 1995), with some significant changes as he struggled to accommodate the unique characteristics of Vijayanagara within his segmentary state framework.
For Stein the value of the segmentary state concept was as a structural framework that could allow scholars to evaluate the relationships among parts or segments of a political structure. Stein argued that a segmentary state is composed of numerous coexisting centers or political domains, among which power and sovereignty are distributed. Each of these domains has autonomous administrative and coercive capabilities. These units are linked into a single polity through their shared acknowledgement of the ritual and royal authority of an anointed king who is the state’s symbolic center, based at its main ritual center. The result is a pyramidal social order,with a highdegree of structural redundancy among ranked segments. The model does not specify the precise content or form of administrative, military, economic, or sacred organization, which can in any case be expected to vary from state to state.
There were various units of authority in the Vijaynagara state – the King in the Core region, the Mandalam or the province, the nadu or the districts and the grama or the village. He identified certain Core regions, which were located in the fertile riverine regions, having high population density. Here the king exercised maximum authority. The Chola state was located in the Kaveri river basin. For the Vijaynagara state, the Core region was situated in the Tungabhadra region. He saw the Macro areas where the king’s authority reduces as one moved further away from the Core regions. Here the king’s authority takes the form of ritual authority, in the form of gifts, tributes and military assistance. Stein saw this as constituting a pyramidal structure, with the core region at the apex of the pyramid, where the relations between two units were replicated at various levels. The relationship between the king and the nayakas and the provincial governors were described in a ritual manner.
Stein argued that Vijayanagara qualified as a segmentary state because power was distributed among diverse segments. However, although local groups and rights remained important, the significant segments for Vijayanagara were different than the local assemblies and territorial units of the earlier lowland Cholas. In Vijayanagara, they also included domains ruled by military elites, which had been created by the state in ultimately unsuccessful attempts at centralization.
The view of Burton Stein has come under a lot of criticism. The first is that it is a conception model. It has been borrowed and cannot be applied to the Vijayanagar state. Second, There was a considerable increase in the power of the king from the Chola period. There was also an expansion in the scope and role of the state and king. Certain institutions like the Council of Ministers developed further. Third, Stein said that there is not much of a distinction between the Provincial Governors and the nayakas. Scholars like Shastri and Mahalingam emphasize the differences between the two. These differences are – Generally the Provincial Governors were from the royal family, and were representatives of the royal family. The nayakas were military chieftains who enjoyed rights over land given to them. The Provincial Governors were subject to transfer and dismissal, and were under greater control of the king as compared to the nayakas who enjoyed relatively more autonomy. Yet the Provincial Governors had some freedom to make appointments and some power over the army. The Provincial Governors seem to replace the role which was played by the Chola Assemblies in the earlier period.
Carla sinopoli criticized this model by saying that Stein’s model, like other models of the South Asian state, provided no means for addressing the question of temporal or structural changes in state organization. Stein’s views evolved as a response to the Indian historiographical model that viewed the later Chola andVijayanagara states as highly centralized and bureaucratized.
Champakalaksmi, heitman, karashima and palat criticized segmentary model by saying that, As a structural model, the segmentary state model lacks dynamism or recognition of mechanisms for significant structural change. Stein did acknowledge change in South India, particularly in his discussion of the Vijayanagara period and of various attempts by Vijayanagara rulers at greater state centralization. Nonetheless, he believed that the segmentary structure was both highly durable and accurately characterized Chola and Vijayanagara political structures throughout their centuries-long histories.
Like Nilakanta Sastri and Burton Stein, Noburu Karashima came to the study of Vijayanagara through prior research on the Chola empire. And, like them, throughout Karashima’s writings, Vijayanagara is viewed in contrast to Chola social and political organization. Karashima’s work is detail oriented; he characteristically dissects a small subset of Tamil inscriptions from a specific time and place. Nonetheless, using these fine-scale inscriptional studies, Karashima has drawn some general conclusions about Vijayanagara rule in Tamil Nadu.
Karashima’s perspective constitutes the third major contemporary theoretical approach to Vijayanagara and can perhaps best be described as “cautiously feudal.” He believes that data from Tamil Nadu provide evidence for marked changes in political and social organization during the Saluva and Tuluva periods. These changes correlate with the increased importance of the nayakas, leading towards “the development of a feudal social formation”. He does not seek to extend these interpretations to other areas of the empire; rather, his focus is exclusively Tamil. Karashima argues that the early Vijayanagara period was marked by the continuation of strong central government control in Tamil Nadu, under Vijayanagara governors and generals. These administrators continued and increased the exploitation of the populace, through onerous tax burdens and demands on resources and labor. In response, the inscriptional record provides evidence for peasant resistance, including mass migrations and, in some areas, open revolts.
This unstable situation began to change in the late fifteenth century, as the Vijayanagara state replaced these administrators with a new kind of official, the nayaka. For Karashima, the nayakas are best understood as feudal officers, granted rights to land – the nayakkattanam – by the king, in exchange for their commitment to provide military services. Nayakas could themselves be feudatory lords, able to cede territories to “sub-nayakas,”who acknowledged both the Vijayanagara king and the nayaka as their lord. Karashima sees the nayakas as wholly dependent upon the king for their positions; their loyalty to the ruler was expressed in inscriptions recording donations made “for the merit of the king.” This relationship persisted until the late sixteenth century, when nayakas became increasingly autonomous as Vijayanagara central authority weakened after 1565.
For Karashima, the appearance of nayaka rule in Tamil regions is both evidence for and part of the process of the strengthening of Vijayanagara power and authority. The imposition of nayakas overcame the problems of the first century of Vijayanagara rule in the Tamil region by creating a class of overlords who profited from investing in the regions they ruled rather than from looting or extracting resources that could not be replenished. As nayakas gained from economic production and increased output in their territories, they took increasing roles in encouraging craft and agricultural production. The earlier pattern of resource extraction by administrators changed to investment by holders of territories. As a result, tax burdens were reduced and rebellions and discontent declined. This was not a feudal order in the sense that it existed in medieval Europe because of the relatively high scale of commodity production and commerce that characterized South India, but for Karashima, the system was comparable to the feudalism of Tokagawa Japan. For Karashima, then, the later Vijayanagara period marked an historic progression from a sociopolitical system of state slavery to one of feudalism. But this was a feudalism marked by a dynamic political economy, in which feudal lords and the state had an important role.
Stein criticized this by saying that, While Karashima has interpreted the nayakas as evidence for a feudal order in Vijayanagara, he argued that the feudal model is not appropriate to South India, as too many additional competing interests cross-cut the administrative segments to allow for a true feudalism.
Through their writings, Nilakanta Sastri, Stein, and Karashima have contributed to scholarly understandings of Vijayanagara and, more generally, of approaches to the South Asian state. They differed significantly in their interpretations of Vijayanagara – as war state, segmentary state, or feudal state, respectively. Yet none of these authors are simple, or simplistic, writers or thinkers, and all acknowledge the complexity of Vijayanagara social, political, and economic structures. These perspective also share a predominantly tamil focus in their focus to Vijayanagara. All three authors saw evidence for marked changes in imperial organization with the increasing prominence of nayakas in the southeast in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century, though they disagree on the nature of these changes, and the extent to which it marked a radical break in state structures.
Thus, during the 15th and early 16th centuries, south India became the most dynamic area of the subcontinent, both economically and culturally. Cynthia Talbot describes it as the age of “physical mobility, social diversity and cross-cultural borrowing from all over the Indian peninsula.”
Bibliography :
(1). Carla M. Sinopoli – the political economy of craft production: crafting empire in south india , c.1350-1650
(2). Burton Stein – Cambridge History of India (1.2) : Vijayanagara
(3). Cynthia Talbot – Precolonial India in practice : Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra
(4). K.A.Nilakanta Sastri – ‘History of South India’
(5). Article by R. Champakalakshmi – ‘The State in Pre-Modern South India: A Histiriographical Re-Assessment’