¹ Tirumalai-Tirupati Epigraphical Series. Report on the Inscriptions of the Devasthanam Collection with Illustrations. Edited by Sastri, Sadhu Subrahmanya. Introduction by Nilakanta Sastri, K. A.. Madras: Tirupati Sri Mahant's Press, 1930Google Scholar; and Tirumalai-Tirupati Epigraphical Series. Texts and Translations. 6 vols. Tirupati: Tirumalai-Tirupati Devasthanam Press, 1931–38.Google Scholar The volumes of texts are hereafter referred to as TTDI followed by a volume number and the number of the specific inscriptional texts in each volume.

² The Vijayanagar Empire was established in the early 14th century and lasted, as a significant power, to the early 17th century. Its establishment and great power, particularly in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, helped to contain the expansion of Islam into South India until the time of Aurangzeb in the 1680's. Through most of the period of its rule, the Vijayanagar Empire controlled the greater part of India south of the Krishna River. The most recent and best study of Vijayanagar is Nilakanta Sastri's, K. A.A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1955).Google Scholar

³ The nāyaka system is discussed in detail by two contemporary Portuguese travellers in India, Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz in Sewell, Robert, A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar); A Contribution to the History of India (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Company Ltd., 1900) pp. 281 and 379–89Google Scholar respectively.

⁴ These forms of land tenure are discussed by Mahalingam, T. V., Economic Life in the Vijayanagar Empire (Madras: University of Madras, 1951) pp. 86–91.Google Scholar

⁵ Ghosh, A., The Law of Endowments (Calcutta: Eastern Publishing House, 1938), p. 10.Google Scholar Ghosh discusses this matter historically.

⁶ TTDI, V, Nos. 77, 84, 115. Arguments in the controversy over the peasant proprietorship tenure may be found in Mahalingam, p. 84 and Venkataramanayya, N., Studies in the Third Dynasty of Vijayanagara (Madras: University of Madras, 1935), pp. 164–86.Google Scholar

⁷ This cannot be established in absolutely certain terms because the inscriptions usually do not specify how the temple functionaries obtained their villages. In eight cases where the origin of villages granted by temple functionaries is specified, six came from state donors, one from another functionary, and one was purchased by a functionary from a local chieftain. See TTDI, III, Nos. 90, 142, 163; IV, Nos. 14, 122, 144; V, Nos. 47, 66, 77. In general, no group other than holders of crown and service tenure lands had command over villages to a degree which would have permitted alienation to temple functionaries as brahmadāya grants.

⁸ The use of the terms mēlvāram and kudivaram to refer to major and minor income shares and the terms referring to the right to enjoy these shares, miyatchi and kaniyatchi, were in use during the Chola period (ca. 10th to 13th centuries) and even before during the 8th and 9th centuries of the Pandyan ascendancy. See Nilakanta Sastri, K. A., The Cōlas, II, part I (Madras: University of Madras, 1937), 395Google Scholar and Gupta, Kishori Mohan, The Land System of South India between c. 800 A.D. and 1200 A.D. Punjab Oriental Series. No. XX (Lahore: M. Benarsi Das, 1933), 194.Google Scholar

⁹ This fact was noted by the South Indian historian Krishnasvami Aiyanger, S. in his study of the Tirupati temple; A History of the Holy Shrine of Sri Venkatesa in Tirupati, II (Madras: Tirumalai-Tirupati Devasthanam Committee, 1941), 403.Google Scholar According to Gupta, this was characteristic in South India.

¹⁰ See note 8, also “kaniyatchi” in Wilson, Horace H., A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms (Calcutta: Eastern Law House, 1940), p. 402.Google Scholar

¹¹ TTDI, V, Nos. 84, 98, 139.

¹² TTDI, III, Nos. 90, 91.

¹³ Cultivators of temple villages not only realized the benefits from the capital improvements in their land, and therefore greater minor share incomes, but they probably benefited materially from the investment initially since the money was mainly used for labor services in construction of irrigation improvements. It is probable that the actual labor was performed by the cultivators of the land working under the direction of the temple works officers.

¹⁴ TTDI, IV, No. 169.

¹⁵ TTDI, IV, No. 170.

¹⁶ The paṇam, a copper coin, was the most important circulating medium around Tirupati during Vijayanagar times. The prefix nar indicated that the coins were not debased. On the basis of fragmentary evidence of Vijayanagar currency, it appears that the amount of copper in the panam gradually decreased between the early 16th and early 17th centuries. See Panchamukhi, R. S., “Some Vijayanagar Copper Coins,” Journal of the Numismatic Society of India, V (June 1943), 58–9.Google Scholar

¹⁷ This is the processional image of the deity Śrī Vēnkatēśvara at Tirupati.

¹⁸ The writer never encountered a major share exceeding 75 per cent of the income of a temple village.

¹⁹ TTDI, IV, No. 64 dated 1536 with an annual return of 15 percent.

²⁰ Land that by reason of size, fertility, etc. produced a relatively high incremental increase in product per unit of capital input.

²¹ The 10 per cent return on a monetary endowment seemed also to exist at the great Śaivite temple at Kalahasti where the same practice of irrigation investments was followed. Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy (New Dehli: Manager of Publications). 1922, No. 166Google Scholar; 1924, Nos. 145, 152, 164, 166, 171, 180, 183; 1927, Nos. 160, 167.

²² Cited by Venkataramanayya, p. 242.

²³ The entire situation is discussed by Venkataramanayya, pp. 12–15, 56–61 and in Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. and Venkataramanayya, N., Further Sources of Vijayanagar History, I (Madras: University of Madras, 1946), 234–8.Google Scholar

²⁴ Venkataramanayya, pp. 58–59 provides a list of Ramarljaā's followers.

²⁵ TTDI, V, Nos. 11, 27, 51, 53, 75, 93, 101, 122, 125, 129, 133, 141, 154, 155, 158, 168.

²⁶ There were a number of educational institutions (mathas) in these places, notably the famous one at Ahobila in Kurnool district, which maintained close relations with the Temple. There was also a constant flow of pilgrims from this area to the Temple.

²⁷ The town was created, according to tradition, by the great Vaishnavite teacher, Rāmānuja.

²⁸ TTDI, II, No. 30.

²⁹ The practice of granting one-quarter share as the “donor's share” (vittavan vilukkādu) was widespread in South India. It appears to be a late innovation, the first mention of the practice at Tirupati being 1354; TTDI, I, No. 106.

³⁰ The Temple maintained a body of learned propagandists, acharyapurushas, whose task it was to move about South India describing the Temple and encouraging pilgrims.

³¹ TTDI, V, No. 88.

³² TTDI, IV, Nos. 72, 74, 93.

³³ This figure of fifteen must be regarded as tentative and is probably low. Many of the earlier in scriptions were damaged in building and rebuilding prior to the 15th century.