RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND MILITARY FEUDALISMseem also to have had some administrative functions in Ganjam and
Kalinga. Kapilendra was the grandson of such a nayaka, as we have seen.
The title nayaka was not unknown in earlier periods, but the sudden
increase in the number and their importance in several parts of Orissa in
the early thirteenth century, and even more so in the fourteenth century,
seems to be a clear indication of the militarisation of Hindu states in the
Late Middle Ages. The nayakas also held fiefs, the inscription referred to
above lists in detail the places to which the respective nayakas belong, an
altogether novel feature at that time which shows some similarity with
military prebendalism or even military feudalism. We may attribute this to
the impact of the Delhi sultanate which had been founded only a few
decades earlier. If this is correct, it would show that Hindu realms were
able to respond very quickly to such new challenges.
The foundation of the Vijayanagar empireWhile the development of the regional realm of Orissa was due to a
continuous process of state formation which lasted for several centuries,
the Vijayanagar empire was founded in 1346 as a direct response to the
challenge posed by the sultanate of Delhi. The empire was founded by
several brothers, Harihara and Bukka being the most important among
them. Their dynasty was named after their father, Sangama.
There is a long and acrimonious debate about the antecedents of these
brothers among Indian historians. According to some (mostly those from
Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh), the brothers fled from Warangal
(Andhra Pradesh) after its capture by the Muslims; they then settled at
Kampili, a small realm close to what was to become the city of
Vijayanagar, where they were taken prisoner by the sultan’s army in 1327.
They were taken to Delhi and converted to Islam, whereupon the sultan
sent them back to control Kampili on his behalf. Then they came under the
influence of the Hindu monk Vidyaranya, who reconverted them to
Hinduism. They soon headed the Hindu rebels against Muslim rule and
founded a new realm with a capital at a strategic place south of the
Tungabhadra river, where Harihara was crowned in 1336. It was probably
also due to Vidyaranya’s influence that the early rulers of Vijayanagar
regarded themselves as the representatives of the god Virupaksha, to whom
the main temple of Vijayanagar is dedicated. Later rulers even signed
documents in the name of Virupaksha. After defeating the Hoysala king
whose power had been weakened by fighting both against Delhi and
Madurai, in 1346 Harihara held a great celebration in the monastery of
Sringeri, the seat of the Shankaracharyas, and thus also obtained the
necessary ritual sanction.
This story is challenged by other historians, mostly from Karnataka,
who claim that Harihara and Bukka were local warriors of Karnataka