RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND MILITARY FEUDALISMwhom the Hoysala king Ballala III had posted at the northern border of his
realm to defend it against Muslim attacks. They also maintain that
Harihara ascended the throne only in 1346—after the death of the last
Hoysala king, Ballala IV.
Until recently the first and more dramatic of the two stories was
generally accepted, even by historians outside India; the more plausible
account of the local origin of the founders of Vijayanagar was rejected as
mere wishful thinking on the part of Karnataka’s regional historians.
Recent research and the interpretation of inscriptions which were not
known to earlier historians tend to support the theory that the founders of
Vijayanagar were local princelings in the service of the Hoysala kings.
Several inscriptions prove that the brothers were already dignitaries in the
service of the Hoysala king a decade before their supposed flight to
Kampili. An inscription of 1320 records that King Ballala III founded the
town of Vijayavirupaksha Hoshapattana on the spot which was later to
become Vijayanagar. After the death of Ballala IV, Ballala III’s widow
seems to have participated in the coronation of Harihara in 1346. In an
inscription dated 1349 her name is mentioned before that of King
Harihara, indicating that Harihara derived his legitimation from being a
kind of devoted heir of the Hoysalas.
In the light of this new information we should also re-examine how the
establishment of the Vijayanagar empire was influenced by the monk
Vidyaranya and the monastery at Sringeri, which was supposedly founded
by Shankara in the early ninth century. Vidyaranya, who has been described
as the catalyst for the foundation of this empire, obviously emerged as an
important actor on the Vijayanagar scene only several decades after the
empire had been founded. But this does not detract from his great merit as a
reformer of Hinduism. Vidyaranya, whose name was Madhava before his
initiation as an ascetic (samnyasin), and his brother Sayana pursued a
deliberate policy of a religious and cultural revival in southern India after the
impact of the Islamic invasion. They wanted to highlight the importance of
the old Vedic texts and Brahmanical codes. Sayana’s commentary on the
Rigveda is regarded as the most authoritative interpretation of this Veda,
even today. His brother Vidyaranya emphasised Shankara’s philosophy
which provided a unified ideology of Hinduism. It may be that he invented
the story of Shankara’s great tour of India and of the establishment of the
four great monasteries in the four corners of the country. If he did not invent
it, he at least saw to it that it would gain universal currency and that the
Shankaracharyas, as the abbots of these monasteries were called, would
emerge as guardians of the Hindu faith. The fact that Vidyaranya’s
monastery at Sringeri was supposed to be one of Shankara’s four original
establishments, coupled with its position close to the old Hoysala capital,
was certainly of great importance for the legitimation of the new rulers of
Vijayanagar favoured by Vidyaranya’s blessing.