Muslims in their armies and courts and fought with other Hindu princes).
In the area of philosophy three rival systems of Veda ̄nta flourished with the
writings of new works in the fourteenth century: by Vidyaranya(Advaita –
S ́an.kara’s tradition); Na ̄ra ̄yana(Dvaita– the tradition associated with
Madhva), and by Venkatanatha(Vis ́is.ta ̄dvaita – Ra ̄ma ̄nujan’s tradition). New
epics were written – for example, the same Venkatanatha wrote a long
narrative on the birth and rise of Kr.s.n.a and the princess Gan.gawrote an
epic celebrating her husband’s victory over the “Turks.”^3 Poets were
patronized in the courts, not least of all the D.in.d.ima family (fifteenth
century), including one who wrote a highly Sanskritized Tamil verse in praise
of Murukan
̄
, the Tamil deity. Temples were constructed that were larger
than those built before – these temples were now mini-cities accommodating
various forms of folk ritual, providing halls for marriages and entertainment
and space for bazaars in ritual paraphernalia. The writing of a ̄gamaswas
sponsored starting from handbooks purporting to describe the way certain
rituals were to be done. Not least important, an elaborate festival known
as the Navara ̄tiri or Maha ̄navamı ̄ was sponsored in September–October.
This festival of nine nights was in honor of the goddess and culminated
in celebrating Vijaya Dasami, the conquest of Ra ̄ma over Ra ̄van.a. While
the Vijayanagara kings were patrons of Vis.n.u, the festival for the goddess,
nonetheless, served many purposes: it legitimated their reign, became an
occasion to demonstrate to all the kingdom and to foreign dignitaries the
status of the king, and to evoke the goddess’s patronage on the operations
of the state. The festival was an enormous pageant complete with the
performance of acrobatic women and parades of elephants and soldiers.
Some scholars have suggested that the Navara ̄tiri incorporated some of the
features of the older as ́vamedha(horse sacrifice) thereby evoking “vaidika”
sanction on the king’s regime.^4 Even after the decline of the Vijayanagara
dynasty in the sixteenth century, similar kinds of activities (e.g., festivals to
the goddess, construction of large temples, the patronage of “Hindu” acts)
were carried on in the courts of the na ̄yakkas– those regional satraps who
had paid homage to the Vijayanagara kings, but now maintained mini-
kingdoms into the seventeenth century.
The Vijayanagara kings were not creating a kingdom from “scratch.” They
followed many of the precedents of the Co ̄l ̄as and other dynasties before
them. They do represent, nonetheless, a pocket in the south where Hindu
dharmawas preserved and where neo-classical expressions prevailed.
The Mara ̄tha ̄s followed a century after the fall of Vijayanagara. Founded
byS ́iva ̄jı ̄in 1667, the Mara ̄tha ̄ “empire” stretched across much of western
Central India.^5 S ́iva ̄jı ̄ took power by assassinating a Muslim general after
having escaped captivity at the hands of the Mughals. S ́iva ̄jı ̄ reorganized the
territory in what is now Maharashtra and administered the realm according
Developments in the Late Medieval Period 139