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Arielle Hessler

Professor Zimansky

History 401.02

12 December

The Validation of Sovereignty in Ancient and Medieval Empires:

A Study of Vijayanagara

The validation, consolation, and execution of power are common threads found in

the fabric of all empires. The medieval empire of Vijayanagara in South India was no

different. As the first empire to unite all the different regions and ethnic groups of South

India, Vijayanagara is a perfect study on the ways kings and emperors justify their right to

rule. The founders of Vijayanagara established the capital city in 1336 AD, and soon the

kingdom grew to become the largest empire to ever exist in South India. It was known

throughout Asia and Europe for the trade of luxury items and exotic goods that could be

obtained at its port cities. For almost three centuries, Vijayanagara was a successful, solid

empire blessed with economic and cultural wealth. While this ended when the capital was

lost in 1565, the empire continued to exist in a smaller region at the tip of the Indian

Peninsula until 1646 AD.1 The Sangamas, the first dynasty on record to rule Vijayanagara,

founded a kingdom that grew to become a large empire in a land where there where there

was no such precedent. Empires were not new to South India, but previous empires had

been segregated to certain regions due to cultural differences and physical boundaries in

geography. The rulers of Vijayanagara had to legitimize their right to rule over all of South

1 Burton Stein, Vijayanagara, vol. I-2, The New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 1-12.

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India, while employing different justifications that would appeal to the various different

cultures that existed on the subcontinent. To do this, the Sangamas used different

techniques to establish a right to sovereignty similar to those that have manifested in

kingdoms all over the world for thousands of years. From the Americas to Rome to Han

China, the Vijayanagara Empire reflects the different religious, political, and cultural tactics

rulers employ to consolidate power.

The origins of Vijayanagara are shrouded in mystery and myth. Archeologist Carla

Sinopoli accounts for these different stories as reflections of “internal variability in the

strategic creation (albeit probably unintended) and presentation of legitimizing imperial

foundation stories to diverse imperial subjects.”2 The various legends became propaganda

that helped legitimize Vijayanagara’s takeover of South India. There are many popular

legends of its founding. Some are political, whereas others tend towards the supernatural.

The political versions account for the founders of Vijayanagara, brothers Harihara Raya I

and Bukka Raya I, as soldiers from empires that existed in South India before the takeover

of Delhi. One places them as being Telugu warriors from the state Kakatiya that were

captured by the sultan of Delhi and forced to convert to Islam. They later escaped and

reverted back to Hinduism and returned to South India to found “a great Hindu kingdom.”3

The other version claims Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I were Kannada princes from

Kampii or Hoysala who were also captured and forced to convert, but then returned to

found Vijayanagara. Both of these accounts give the brothers Harihara and Bukka

2 Carla M. Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne: Political and Social Dynamics of the Vijayanagara Empire,” Journal of the economic and Social History of the Orient 43, no. 3 (2000), 371-372. 3Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 372 .

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legitimacy in South India. In the former, they are traditional Indian warriors who are

captured, only to escape and fight for their culture against foreign invaders. In the latter,

they are already given the status of royalty, and again become symbols of South Indian

resistance against the Northern sultans. Both versions emphasize that Harihara Raya I and

Bukka Raya I came from existing kingdoms in South India, giving them a traditional

background and origin while separating them from the foreign powers that were

threatening India at the time.

The mythical account of Vijayanagara’s founding grants the empire a sense of

mystique and divine sanction. A legend that began circulating a century after the founding

of the empire claims that it was not Harihara Raya I or Bukka Raya I that were the founders

of Vijayanagara, but a mythical king named Devaraya. According to the story, Devaraya

was king of a city located at the later site of Vijayanagara, the capital city of the empire, who

was captured by the Delhi sultanate and kept in captivity for years. When he escaped,

Devaraya returned to his city and founded a Hindu empire to grow and protect South India

against the North Indian Muslim forces. Bukka Raya I, a descendant, founded the Sangama

dynasty to rule Vijayanagara after him. This story has been discounted by historians and

archeologists because there is no evidence of a city, or any kind of advanced civilization,

existing on the site of Vijayanagara before its founding by the Sangamas c. 1336.4 The

legend also only began circulating a century after Vijayanagara was founded; around the

time the empire was expanding to encompass most of South India under the Sangama king

Devaraya II. It is also highly coincidental that the legendary king Devaraya shared the same

4 Carla M. Sinopoli and Kathleen D. Morrison, “Dimensions of Imperial Control: The Vijayanagara Capital,” in American Anthropologist 97, no. 1 (1995), 86.

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name as the reigning king at the time of the myth’s origin.5 This suggests that the legend

began as propaganda, to legitimize the Sangama dynasty and its conquests by starting a

legend claiming they were scions of a past hero-king.

Myths concerning the physical site of the capital city of the empire, Vijayanagara

(the name of the empire is derived from the capital city), also gave legitimacy to the empire.

One myth claims that Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I were hunting along the southern

bank of the Tungabhadra River when the hare their dogs were chasing “suddenly turned on

its adversaries and began to chase the fierce hounds.”6 The two brothers consulted the

great sage Vidyaranya, who claimed that this was an omen that a city should be built there

where “the weak would become strong and would challenge the mighty.”7 By saying this,

Vidyaranya was not only asking Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I to found a kingdom that

would protect Hinduism against the mighty Muslim sultanates in North India, but also

claiming they would succeed in their undertaking. It should also be noted that while the

capital city was strategically situated at an easily defendable site on the southern bank of

the Tungabhadra River, the land also had strong religious connotations. Harihara Raya I

and Bukka Raya I knew of the land’s importance to the Hindu god Virupaksha, and that

people believed there was a type of cosmic protection associated with the land. The

Sangamas were also aware that it was a location associated with the well-known South

5 Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 371-372. 6 Anila Verghese, “Deities, Cults and Kings at Vijayanagara,” in World Archeology 36, no. 3 (2004), 421. 7 Verghese, “Deities, Cults and Kings at Vijayanagara,” 421.

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Asian mythical hero-king of the Hindu myth of Ramayana, making the site of Vijayanagara a

place linked with divine kingship.8

The kings of the Vijayanagara Empire, like many rulers of ancient and medieval

empires, were using origin myths as propaganda to give their kingdom, and their right to

sovereignty, legitimacy. The stories concerning the origin of the Vijayanagara Empire and

its founders cover all aspects of legitimacy, with traditional, religious, and geographical

emphasis. This is a common tool employed by rulers of many kingdoms and empires to

rationalize why a new sovereign had a right to rule in a locale where no such precedent

exists. The Roman Empire had similar political legends surrounding the founding of its

city, while the Aztec Empire had religious myths comparable to those at Vijayanagara. The

most well-known Roman legend concerned the Trojan Prince Aeneas, who escaped during

the fall of Troy to found a new city in Italy. Other myths include brothers raised by wolves

founding the city, and an Arcadian founding the city 60 years before the Trojan War. A

common thread among these Roman myths is the patronage of the king of Latium, a

contemporary kingdom that existed in Italy before Rome’s founding, towards the various

men involved in these legends. This gave the founders of Rome a sense of royal sanction

and right to govern the region.9 These political stories legitimize Rome’s right to

sovereignty just as Vijayanagara’s political stories gave their kings the right to rule by

portraying them as South Indian heroes who would protect Hinduism and Indian culture

against the strong Muslim sultanates to the North. Similarly, the myth surrounding the

origin of the Aztec Empire of the Americas is similar to the religious aspects of

8 Verghese, “Deities, Cults and Kings at Vijayanagara,” 421. 9 Marcel Le Glay et al., A History of Rome, 4th ed. (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 21.

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Vijayanagara legends. The Aztecs had a prophecy that a great city would be built on the

site were an eagle perched on a cactus with a serpent in its mouth.10 This became the site

of Tenochtitlan, one of the three great cities in the Triple Alliance of the Aztec Empire. This

legend is similar to those of Vijayanagara in that it employs animals as representations of

divine will, with the hare chasing the hunting dogs, and places religious importance on a

particular site by promising protection and greatness. Vijayanagara kings were using the

same mythological techniques to legitimize their right to rule as these empires had done

before. The various different accounts most likely had the effect that historian Sinopoli

suggests, that multiple stories have the ability to give different reasons, be they religious or

political in nature, for an empire to exist and have legitimate power.11 These different

reasons are necessary for empires because by their very nature, empires usually

encompass multiple religions, ethnicities, and cultures. This was especially true for the

Vijayanagara Empire, which spanned many different traditional South Indian cultures and

religious Hindu sects in the centuries it reigned. Different people have different beliefs in

what gives someone or something the right to rule, and having multiple myths with various

political and religious themes enables rulers to address these different ideas during their

reign.

Outside of mythology, religion played an additional role in legitimizing sovereignty

when religious significance is placed upon the institution of kingship. The most common

kingdoms associated with religious rule are Egypt and China, yet other empires, including

10 Timothy G. Roufs, “Ancient Civilization: The Aztecs,” in Ancient Middle America, University of Minnesota, http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/video/Ancient_Aztecs.html (accessed 5 December 2011) 11 Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 371-372.

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Vijayanagara, used this as a tool for validating kingship as well. In Egypt, pharaohs were

considered the human incarnations of the Egyptian sun god Horus, and later Ra, while they

reigned. This gave Egyptian kings absolute power. Their word was law, for the Egyptians

worshipped them as divine beings who ruled in accordance with their fellow gods’ will. As

a god, the pharaoh also owned of all the land in Egypt, including its land, people, and

resources. They were responsible for preserving Ma’at, which at its simplest translation is

the perfect balance between all things. This meant the emperor was responsible for the

Nile flooding the valleys with silt regularly, the crops that grew to feed everyone, and the

success and general good fortune of Egypt and its people.12 This is similar to how the

Chinese ruled their kingdom under the Mandate of Heaven. Chinese emperors were not

themselves divine, but the institution of kingship was. Each dynasty was considered to

have the Mandate of Heaven, and each emperor was the Son of Heaven. As the Son of

Heaven, a Chinese emperor was responsible for establishing and maintaining the place of

his people in the cosmic order of Humanity, Heaven, and Earth. He is the appointed liaison

between the divine and their people, and is given sovereignty to preserve balance.13 The

preservation of Ma’at and the cosmic order was reflected during the peaceful periods for

Egyptian and Chinese dynasties, respectively. Claiming divine right, or divinity itself, was a

brilliant way to legitimize a dynasty’s right to rule in a growing kingdom for it used the new

dynasty’s military, economical, and cultural achievements as the very evidence of the gods’

will. This was especially important in China, for each new dynasty that came into power

12 William H. Stiebing Jr., ”Egypt to the End of the Old Kingdom,” in Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), 127-129. 13 William T. Rowe, “Conquest,” in China’s Last Great Empire: The Great Qing, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2009), 17-19.

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used their conquest as proof that the Mandate of heaven had shifted from the previous

ruling family to the new one. It is the very success of the new dynasty that guaranteed its

divine sanction.

Historian John M. Fritz notes that in Vijayanagara, “while kings were not necessarily

divine, the institution of kingship was. Royal authority was intimately bound up with divine

power.”14 The first Vijayanagara kings, Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama

dynasty, employed this idea of divine kingship by building their capital city on a sacred site

connected with a divine king. As mentioned previously, Vijayanagara was built on a site

associated with Rama, the god-king of the Indian myth Ramayana.15 According to historian

Alexandra Mack, “Local tradition places it [the capital Vijayanagara] in the heart of

Kishkinda, the monkey kingdom referred to in the Ramayana.”16 There are also other ‘holy’

landmarks associated with Rama and his quest that the Sangamas incorporated within the

walls of their city, such as a rock within the suburbs of the city, and a hill that was within

the fortification walls. Mack asserts this was not a coincidence, but that the Sangama

founders knew of the religious importance of the site to South Indian Hindus, and built

their capital there to circulate the idea that they were also “god-kings” like the legendary

Rama.17 Historian John Fritz expands on Mack’s theory with his analysis of the structure of

the capital city, and how its layout portrays a deliberate construction aimed towards a

14 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 46. 15 Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 370. 16 Alexandra Mack, “One landscape, Many Experiences at Vijayanagara,” in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 11, no. 1 (2004), 62. 17 Mack, “One Landscape, Many Experiences,” 61-63.

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sense of physical power and dominance by the Sangamas.18 Fritz explains that the

Ramachandra Temple the rulers built in Vijayanagara to honor the legendary god-king

Rama19 was where the kings would conduct most of their official ceremonies. The

Vijayanagara kings did this in an attempt to strengthen their position as successors to

Rama, and make the institution of kingship a divine seat in Vijayanagara. There were also

inscriptions and murals within the city that compared Vijayanagara to Rama’s capital city

Ayodhya. Fritz claims that the Vijayanagara kings even built the royal center of the city in a

way that their earthly power would be linked to the divine power of Rama. Fritz argues:

All routes of movement in the capital are directed toward or circulate around the royal center; movement within the royal center circulates through the open space in which the Ramachandra Temple is located. Thus, movement inward is directed to the seat of the king’s activities (the royal center), and, within this, to the temple of the god Ramachandra.20

With the very way in which they built their capital, the Sangama rulers of Vijayanagara

were trying to link themselves with the historic and religious image of Rama, the god-king.

This achievement gave the notion of divine sanction to their actions while also linking their

dynasty with the ideal Hindu king of the past. While unable to claim they were gods

themselves, like the pharaohs of Egypt, or that they were given a divine mandate to

preserve balance like the Chinese, the rulers of Vijayanagara were able to use the vestiges

of Rama’s legend to link themselves with a past kingdom, claim they were ruling in

accordance with the Hindu gods, and paint themselves as the new ideal kings of the South

Indian people. In a different way than the Egyptians and the Chinese, Vijayanagara kings

18 John M. Frtiz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning of a South Indian Imperial Capital,” in American Anthropologist 88, no. 1 (1986), 44-55. 19 The full name of the legendary king Rama is Ramachandra. 20 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 52.

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used religion as a tool to strengthen and legitimize their right to rule with a claim to divine

sanction.

Like the Egyptian and Chinese rulers, Vijayanagara king’s assertion of a divine

institution of kingship was also dependent on maintaining a cosmic balance. However,

theirs was one more focused on conquest than religious philosophy. The kings of

Vijayanagara were supposed to protect their people through “conquest and plunder,

redistribution of booty and surplus, arbitration of disputes, and celebration of particular

rites.”21 Sinopoli attributes this to the Indian Hindu deities Vijayanagara kings elevated

throughout their rule. They were violent, strong gods with the “attributes of warriors and

protectors.” 22 Statues of gods were placed near the gates of the city and wall fortifications

to link the kings with their patron gods as fierce protectors of the city and the empire.

Sinopoli believes this explains the “militaristic qualities” of the Vijayanagara Empire and its

rulers.23 For a king to be a god-king, they had to take on the characteristics of the gods they

worshipped. In worshipping fierce warrior gods, Vijayanagara kings had to be warriors as

well. Evidence of this is found in many different carvings and inscriptions found within the

ruins of Vijayanagara, located around modern-day Hampi. There are carvings of war-

horses, elephants, dancing girls, and men bearing tribute lining up to pay homage to the

kings of Vijayanagara all over the capital city.24 The sport of hunting was a tangible way the

Vijayanagara kings displayed their military might and prowess. Besides “conveying the

might of the assembled elephants, horses, beaters, and warrior-hunters, these [hunting]

21 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 46. 22 Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 376. 23 Sinopoli, “From the Lion Throne,” 376. 24 John M. Fritz, George Mitchell, and Claire Arni, New Light on Hampi: Recent Research at Vijayanagara, (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2001).

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expeditions also displayed the organizational capabilities of royal leadership.”25 This

allowed Vijayanagara kings to mimic the behavior of the ideal Indian warrior, which was

what was expected of kings in South India. Thus, the Vijayanagara kings proved their role

as god-kings through their warrior-hunter capabilities and military successes. Like in the

myth of the hare rising to chase the hunting dogs, the Vijayanagara Empire rose from a

weak, divided South India to a united kingdom that stood strong against the Muslim

sultanates to the north for centuries. Thus the conquests and growth of the empire from

1336-1565 AD was ‘proof’ of the rulers being god-kings.

Military might played an important part in the secular realm as well as the religious

world in giving Vijayanagara rulers the right to sovereignty. Rulers who were successful in

battle attracted nobles26 to support their rule and lend money and war materials to

campaigns. The kings of Vijayanagara recognized this, and gained the support of the South

Indian elite through treaties, alliances, and conquest. The support of the elite was

especially needed by the rulers of Vijayanagara because they had no historical noble

heritage to claim descent from. The aristocracies of South India, however, were

representatives of different cultural regions of India, who had ruled their land in traditional

ways for many years. In theory, any elite family could have risen to claim sovereignty in

the many different regions of South India, and the land would have continued to remain

25 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 47. 26 There was not an aristocracy that existed in India in the traditional European sense of the word. There were ‘nobles,’ largely military generals or large land-owners, that stayed in power after the fall of the previous empires of their regions. There were also many local chiefs that had won their land through conquest and their adherence to various cultural traditions observed in different parts of South India. This was especially observed along the coasts, which historically were more independent and developed than central India because the land was more temperate and had a successful sea trade. Within this paper, the discussion of these different chiefs, nobles, and old military generals will be called the aristocracy, nobles, or the elite of Vijayanagara.

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fractured and vulnerable to invaders. Instead, the Sangama dynasty took advantage of the

existing lack of unity and rapidly spread their realm’s boundaries by conquering

neighboring regions. Some of the nobles joined the empire willingly, seeing it as a

favorable alternative to being ruled by the Muslim sultanates to the north. Others were

taken by siege, and forced to join Vijayanagara. All of the nobles and local chiefs were

required to pay homage and tribute to the king, and to provide him troops and supplies in

times of war. The Sangamas enforced this during the annual mahanavami festival.

The religious and political rituals that took place during the annual mahanavami

festival in South India made the celebration the crux of all the different ways the

Vijayanagara kings legitimized their sovereignty. The mahanavami festival took place

every year in the time between the summer rainy season and the drought of winter.27

According to Fritz, “at Vijayanagara, the mahanavami rites reconstituted the ‘centralized

and hierarchic’ phase of the state.”28 During the festival, the mahanavami rites were

performed in the palace only by Brahmins and the king in reverence to the image of a

Hindu god. This reinforced the idea that the Vijayanagara kings held a type of unique

“partnership” with the gods.29 After the religious activities were observed, it was

traditional for rulers to accept tribute from nobles and leaders from the different regions

and provinces within the empire. Fritz argues that:

By their presence, subordinate leaders – who, on this occasion, were at the capital together with their retainers and armies – indicated their willingness to support the king . . . In the giving of honors and entertainment, the king affirmed the hierarchies

27 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 49. 28 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 49. 29 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 49.

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of status; those who accepted these honors acknowledged the legitimacy of the king’s authority.30

Essentially, Vijayanagara kings established a feudalistic system to enforce their authority.

It is comparable to what Charlemagne established in France in the 700s CE. The Holy

Roman Emperor Charlemagne of the Franks recognized the use of giving out ‘honores’ in

exchange for loyalty was a useful tool.31 In France, just like in South India, the nobles who

ruled specific regions were bound to that land by time and tradition – a ruling family in one

province had always been the power in that particular area.32 This limited the ability of

these families to gain power over their rivals, for most land and power was already

subdivided and controlled among these families. War and conquest had been the only

other option in gaining more land and power outside of political marriages. However,

Charlemagne recognized that as a king, and later emperor, he had the power to regulate

titles, gifts, and influence. He could also take away land and ‘honores´ from families that

were disloyal. His nobles understood this, and vowed to support him as king with their

lands and resources in exchange for royal favor.33 This system is similar to that employed

by the kings of Vijayanagara. It was a mutual recognition of power. The Vijayanagara kings

recognized that the support of their nobles gave them sovereignty, while the aristocracy

recognized that the kings could give and take away honors. The annual mahanavami

festival became a tool for the Vijayanagara kings to annually reassert this power in front of

all the influential members of their empire.

30 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 49. 31 Joanne Story, “The Aristocracy: Captains and Kings,” in Charlemagne: Empire and Society, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 93. 32 Story, “The Aristocracy,” 93. 33 Story, “The Aristocracy,” 93.

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A display of wealth and power was another tool employed by Vijayanagara rulers

during the annual mahanavami festival. It was not enough for a ruler to be recognized by

his nobles and subjects through formal rituals – it had to also be shown and witnessed.

Archaeologists have found platforms associated with the mahanavami festival that have

scenes of royal hunting expeditions and military exploits prominently displayed on the

sides. Figures of kings holding bows, mounted on elephants, or even attacking lions with

daggers, are seen throughout the capital of Vijayanagara.34 The carvings on the panels

outside the walls of the Ramachandra Temple in the middle of the royal palace, where the

rites observed during the mahanavami festival would have been held, depict “elephants,

cavalry, foot soldiers, dancing women, and musicians process[ing] toward[s] royal figures

seated in templelike pavilions.”35 Vijayanagara kings used the artwork of their capital city

to glorify their wealth and their power to anyone who visited for the annual celebration.

The kings also had large amounts of wealth obtained through plunder, tribute, and taxes,

which they displayed to convey a message of superiority. The king and those that resided

with him in the royal center displayed their wealth through luxurious possessions such as

jewels, precious metals, Chinese porcelain, silk clothing, and richly furnished living

quarters.36 Vijayanagara rulers also displayed their wealth with lavish entertainment and

elaborate rituals and gifts to any dignitaries or nobles visiting the capital. The abundant

wealth and power conveyed through the carvings and art of Vijayanagara combined with

the lavish entertainment and wealth in the royal center worked together to impress the

34 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 47. 35 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 47. 36 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 47.

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supplicants within the city, and at the annual mahanavami festival, of the kings’

sovereignty.

Power was conveyed through the use of architecture as well. The Sangamas built

huge imposing walls around the capital city and each of its separate quarters, and placed

giant statues of rearing horses – a symbol of royal power – flanking the entrances to the

palace and carved into the panels underneath the palace steps.37 The sheer size of the

walls and monuments were physically dominating features meant to intimidate visitors.

When visitors and supplicants arrived for the annual mahanavami festival, the city itself

was used as a tool to show the power and majesty of the empire and its rulers.

All the different methods used by the kings of Vijayanagara in their quest to

legitimize their power are variations of techniques that have manifested in cultures all over

the world for centuries. From origin myths, divine kings, and regulators of the cosmic

balance to military exploits, shows of abundant wealth, and feudalism, Vijayanagara is the

perfect example of an empire that grew to greatness through self-assertion of power. Its

rulers wove together the religious, militaristic, and political threads that made up the robe

of sovereignty reserved solely for royalty, despite the mountain of tradition that stood in

their way.

37 Fritz, “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning,” 47.

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Bibliography

Fritz, John M. “Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning of a South Indian Imperial Capital.”

in American Anthropologist 88. no. 1 (1986): 44-55.

Fritz, John M., Mitchell, George, and Arni, Claire. New Light on Hampi: Recent Research at

Vijayanagara. (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2001).

Mack, Alexandra. “One landscape, Many Experiences at Vijayanagara.” Journal of

Archaeological Method and Theory 11, no. 1 (2004): 59-81.

Timothy G. Roufs, “Ancient Civilization: The Aztecs,” in Ancient Middle America, University

of Minnesota. Website. (accessed 5 December 2011).

Rowe, William T. “Conquest.” China’s Last Great Empire: The Great Qing. (Cambridge:

Belknap Press, 2009): 11-30.

Sinopoli, Carla M. “From the Lion Throne: Political and Social Dynamics of the

Vijayanagara Empire.” Journal of the economic and Social History of the Orient 43,

no. 3 (2000): 364-398.

Sinopoli, Carla M. and Morrison, Kathleen D. “Dimensions of Imperial Control: The

Vijayanagara Capital.” American Anthropologist 97, no. 1 (1995): 86.

Stein, Burton. Vijayanagara, vol. I-2, The New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1989)

Stiebing, William H. Jr., ”Egypt to the End of the Old Kingdom,” Ancient Near Eastern

History and Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009): 117-143.

Story, Joanne. “The Aristocracy: Captains and Kings.” Charlemagne: Empire and Society.

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005): 93.

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Verghese, Anila. “Deities, Cults and Kings at Vijayanagara,” World Archeology 36, no. 3

(2004): 416-431.