A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar by Robert Sewell (read a book TXT) 📖

the heathen there are these Brahmans; they are men who do not eat anything that suffers death; they have little stomach for the use of arms.

Should any one ask what revenues this king possesses, and what his treasure is that enables him to pay so many troops, since he has so many and such great lords in his kingdom, who, the greater part of them, have themselves revenues, I answer thus: These captains whom he has over these troops of his are the nobles of his kingdom; they are lords, and they hold the city, and the towns and villages of the kingdom; there are captains amongst them who have a revenue of a million and a million a half of PARDAOS, others a hundred thousand PARDAOS, others two hundred, three hundred or five hundred thousand PARDAOS, and as each one has revenue so the king fixes for him the number of troops he must maintain, in foot, horse, and elephants.[454] These troops are always ready for duty, whenever they may be called out and wherever they may have to go; and in this way he has this million of fighting men always ready. Each of these captains labours to turn out the best troops he can get because he pays them their salaries; and in this review there were the finest young men possible to be seen or that ever could be seen, for in all this array I did not see a man that would act the coward. Besides maintaining these troops, each captain has to make his annual payments to the king, and the king has his own salaried troops to whom he gives pay. He has eight hundred elephants attached to his person, and five hundred horses always in his stables, and for the expenses of these horses and elephants he has devoted the revenues that he receives from this city of Bisnaga. You may well imagine how great these expenses may be, and besides these that of the servants who have the care of the horses and elephants; and by this you will be able to judge what will be the revenue of this city.

This king of Bisnaga has five kings his subjects and vassals,[455] besides other captains and lords having large territories and great revenues; whenever a son happens to be born to this king, or a daughter, all the nobles of the kingdom offer him great presents of money and jewels of price, and so they do to him every year on the day of his birth.

You must know that when these feasts of which I have spoken are ended, at the beginning of the month of October, when eleven of its days are past, they make great feasts, during which every one puts on new, and rich, and handsome cloths, each one according to his liking, and all the captains give their men handsome cloths of many colours, each one having his own colour and device. On the same day they give great gifts of money to the king, it is even said that they give on that day to the king in money a million and five hundred thousand gold PARDAOS, and each PARDAO is worth three hundred and sixty REIS, and from this you will be able to know how many REIS there will be. I wish you to know that on this day begins their year; it is their New Year’s Day, and for this they make the feast and give the gifts; and it is not to be wondered at, for we also do the same on New Year’s Day. They begin the year in this month with the new moon, and they count the months always from moon to moon.[456]

And now I wish you to know that the previous kings of this place for many years past have held it a custom to maintain a treasury, which treasury, after the death of each, is kept locked and sealed in such a way that it cannot be seen by any one, nor opened, nor do the kings who succeed to the kingdom open them or know what is in them. They are not opened except when the kings have great need, and thus the kingdom has great supplies to meet its needs. This king has made his treasury different from those of the previous kings, and he puts in it every year ten million PARDAOS, without taking from them one PARDAO more than for the expenses of his house. The rest remains for him, over and above these expenses and of the expenses in the houses of his wives, of whom I have already told you that he keeps near him twelve thousand women; from this you will be able to judge how great is the richness of this kingdom, and how great the treasure that this king has amassed.

And if any one does not know what a PARDAO is, let him know that it is a round gold coin, which coin is not struck anywhere in India except in this kingdom; it bears impressed on it on one side two images and on the other the name of the king who commanded it to be struck; those which this king ordered to be struck have only one image. This coin is current all over India. Each PARDAO, as already said, is worth three hundred and sixty REIS.

After all these things (feasts) had passed the king betook himself to the new city, of which I have already told you that he delights in it much because it was made and peopled by him, of which I have already told you. In two years the king built this city. The king was received by the citizens with great feasts, and the streets were hung with rich cloths, and with many triumphal arches under which he passed. In this city the king held another review of the troops of his guard, and he distributed pay to all because it was the beginning of the year, and it is their custom to pay salaries year by year. An inspection is held by the officers of his house, and they write down the name of each one, and the marks that he has on his face or body. There are men of the guard who have a thousand PARDAOS pay, and others eight hundred, others six hundred and more, and a little more or less; there is a difference, and also a difference in the persons. Some men of them who are of higher rank than others have two horses or three, and others have no more than one. These troops have their captains, and each captain goes with his guard to mount guard at the palace according to order and custom; the king has in his guard five hundred horse, and these watch outside the palace armed with their weapons. There are two watches inside, and people with swords and shields.

The king, then, being in his new city, as I have said, Christovao de Figueiredo begged him of his kindness that he would permit him to be shown the palace of the city of Bisnaga, forasmuch as there had come with him many Portuguese who had never been in Bisnaga, and they would rejoice to see it, in order to have somewhat to tell of on their return to their own lands, whenever God should take them there. The king at once commanded that they should be shown certain of his residences, for that of his wives no one ever sees. As soon as we had returned to the city of Bisnaga, the governor of that place, who is called Gamdarajo, and is brother of Salvatinica,[457] showed us the palace.

You must know that on entering that gate of which I have spoken, by which the ladies serving the king’s wives make their exit when they come to the feast, opposite to it there is another of the same kind. Here they bade us stand still, and they counted us how many we were, and as they counted they admitted us one by one to a small courtyard with a smoothly plastered floor, and with very white walls around it.[458] At the end of this courtyard, opposite this gate by which we entered, is another close to it on the left hand, and another which was closed; the door opposite belongs to the king’s residence. At the entrance of this door outside are two images painted like life and drawn in their manner, which are these; the one on the right hand is of the father of this king, and the one on the left is of this king. The father was dark and a gentleman of fine form, stouter than the son is; they stand with all their apparel and such raiment as they wear or used to wear when alive. Afterwards, wishing to pass in at this door, they again counted us, and after they had finished counting us we entered a little house which contained what I shall now relate.

As soon as you are inside, on the left hand, are two chambers one above the other, which are in this manner: the lower one is below the level of the ground, with two little steps which are covered with copper gilded, and from there to the top is all lined with gold (I do not say “gilded,” but “lined” inside), and outside it is dome-shaped. It has a four-sided porch made of cane-work459 over which is a work of rubies and diamonds and all other kinds of precious stones, and pearls, and above the porch are two pendants of gold; all the precious stonework is in heart-shapes, and, interweaved between one and another, is a twist of thick seed-pearl work; on the dome are pendants of the same. In this chamber was a bed which had feet similar to the porch, the cross-bars covered with gold, and there was on it a mattress of black satin; it had all round it a railing of pearls a span wide; on it were two cushions and no other covering. Of the chamber above it I shall not say if it held anything because I did not see it, but only the one below on the right side. In this house there is a room with pillars of carved stone; this room is all of ivory, as well the chamber as the walls, from top to bottom, and the pillars of the cross-timbers at the top had roses and flowers of lotuses all of ivory, and all well executed, so that there could not be better, — it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere another such. On this same side is designed in painting all the ways of life of the men who have been here even down to the Portuguese, from which the king’s wives can understand the manner in which each one lives in his own country, even to the blind and the beggars. In this house are two thrones covered with gold, and a cot of silver with its curtains. Here I saw a little slab of green jasper, which is held for a great thing in this house. Close to where this jasper is, I.E. underneath some arches where is the entrance into the palace, there is a little door closed with some padlocks: they told us that inside it there was a treasury of one of the former kings.

As soon as we left this house we entered a courtyard as large as an arena for beast-fights, very well plastered, and almost in the middle are some pillars of wood, with a cross beam at the top all covered with copper gilt, and in the middle four chains of silver links with hooks which are caught one into the other; this serves for a swing for the wives of the king.