The Empire was divided for administrative purposes into several provinces (rajya, mandala, chavadi), which had again subdivisions like venthe, nadu, sima village and sthala in the Karnataka portion, and kottam, parru, nadu and village in the Tamil portion. It is very difficult to state the exact number of provinces in the Empire. Some writers relying on Paes write that the Empire was divided into 200 provinces. But the foreign traveller evidently “confounds the tributary kings with the provincial viceroys, and these again with the minor nobles who were merely officials in the government”. According to R. Krishna Shastri, the Empire was divided into six principal provinces. Each province was under a viceroy, nayaka or naik, who might be a member of the royal house, or an influential noble of the State, or some descendant of the old ruling families. Each viceroy exercised civil, military and judicial powers within his jurisdiction, but he was required to submit regular accounts of the income and expenditure of his charge to the central government and render it military aid in times of need. Further, he was liable to severe punishment by the King if he proved to be a traitor or oppressed the people, and his estate could be confiscated to the State if he made default in sending one-third of his income to the latter. Though the naiks were generally severe in raising revenue from the people, they were not unmindful of beneficial work like the encouragement of agriculture, the plantation of new villages, protection of religion and erection of temples and other buildings. But they were greatly responsible for the disorders which prevailed in Southern India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the power of Vijayanagar disappeared for ever.
The Vijayanagar rulers inherited and continued to maintain a healthy and vigorous system of local administration, with the village as the lowest unit. Each village was a self-sufficient unit. The village assembly, like the Panchayat of Northern India, conducted the administration of the area under its charge– executive, judicial and police– through its hereditary officers like the senateova or the village accountant, the talara or the village watchman or commandant, the begara or the superintendent of forced labour, and others. These village officers were paid either by grants of land or portion of agricultural produce. The heads of commercial groups or corporations seem “to have formed an integral part of the villages assemblies” .The King maintained a link with the village administration through his officer called the Mahanayakacharya, who exercised a general supervision over it.
Land revenue, known as sist, was the principal source of income of the Vijayanagar State. It had an efficient system of land revenue administration, under a department called the athavane. Lands were classified under three heads for the purpose of assessment– wet, dry land, and orchards and woods; and the assessments to be paid by the tenants were clearly indicated. To meet the heavy burdens of the State, and solve the problem of obtaining men and money to withstand its enemies, the Vijayanagar Emperors gave up the traditional rate of assessment at one-sixth of the produce and increased it to some extent. It is difficult to accept the statement of Nuniz that the ” husbandmen had to pay one tenth of their produce”. The Vijayanagar rulers adopted the “principle of differential taxation”, that is, levied taxes according to the relative fertility of the lands. Besides the land tax, the ryots had to pay other kinds of taxes like grazing tax, marriage tax, etc. Other sources of income of the State were the revenue from customs duties; tolls on roads; revenue from gardening and plantations; and taxes levied on dealers in goods of common consumption, manufacturers and craftsmen, potters, washermen, shoemakers, barbers, mendicants, temples and prostitutes. Taxes were paid both in cash and kind, as during the days of the Cholas.
There is no doubt that the incidence of taxation was heavy and the provincial governors and revenue officials often practised oppression on the people. But at the same time there are instances to show that the Government redressed the grievances of the people on complaints being made to it and sometimes reduced or remitted taxes, and that the people could appeal directly to the King in time of need. The Empire could certainly not last for about three centuries on a systematic policy of extortion and oppression.
The King was the supreme judge, but there were regular courts and special judicial officers for the administration of justice. Sometimes, disputes were settled by the State officials with the co-operation of the local bodies. The only law of the land was not “the law of the Bahmanas which is that of the priests”, as Nuniz would ask us to believe, but was based on traditional regulations and customs, strengthened by the constitutional usage of the country, and its observance was strictly enforced. Severe punishment was inflicted on guilty persons. These penalties were chiefly of four kinds-fines, confiscation of property, ordeals and death. Death or mutilation was the punishment for crimes like theft, adultery and treason. Sometimes the criminals were ” cast down before the feet of an elephant, that they may be killed by its knees, trunk and tusks”. Official oppression in the sphere of justice was not absent, but the State occasionally granted remedies against it, and it was also “sometimes successfully checked by the united opposition of corporate bodies”.
Like the Hoysalas, the rulers of Vijayanagar had a carefully organized military department, called Kandachara, armies of the Muslim States of the Deccan.
With all that has been said above, the Vijayanagar Empire suffered from certain defects. Firstly, the provincial governors enjoyed a good deal of independence, which contributed in no small degree to the weakening of the central authority and ultimately to the disinteunder the control of the Dandanayaka or Dannayaka (Commander-in-Chief), who was assisted by a staff of minor officials. The State maintained a large and efficient army, the numerical strength of which was not, however, uniform all through. The regular troops of the King were, in times of need, reinforced by auxiliary forcesof the feudatories and nobles. The several component parts of the army were the infantry, recruited from people of different classes and creeds, occasionally including even Muslims; the cavalry. strengthened by the recruitment of good horses from Ormuz through the Portuguese, owing to a dearth of these animals in the Empire; elephants; camels; and artillery, the use of which by the Hindus as early as A.D. 1368 is proved by the evidence of foreign accounts as well as of inscriptions. The discipline and fighting strength of the Vijayanagar army were, however, inferior to those of the gration of the Empire. Secondly, the Empire failed to develop a sustained commercial activity in spite of various facilities. “This failure,” remarks Dr. Aiyangar justly, “proved a vital defect in the imperial career of Vijayanagar, and made a permanent Hindu Empire impossible.” Thirdly, in consideration of temporary gains, the Emperors allowed the Portuguese to settle on the west coast and thus “principles of profit” overrode “the greater question of the stability of their Empire”.
