A ‘Share’ in the ‘World Empire’: Nayamkara as Sovereignty in Practice at Vijayanagara, 1480–1580

How does Timma come to share the mantle with an emperor who is widely acknowledged as the most powerful of the Rayas? If minting coins was an important expression of sovereignty, what does a commemorative coin with both the king’s and Timma’s names suggest? What understanding of sover- eignty practices at Vijayangara might explain such shared conventions? This essay examines revenue practices at Vijayanagara as a crucial dimension in the constitution of sovereignty. It specifically traces revenue-farming prac- tices called nayamkara in the temple inscriptions as part of a distinctive shift in the polity whereby the Nayaka political elite were incorporated as partners and given a ‘share’ or parcel (in Telugu, pallu) of the ‘world empire’ (prithvi rajyam) of Vijayanagara. From about the 1480s to the 1580s, nayamkara partnerships became the centre piece of  Vijayanagara imperial expansion, and were the principal means through which the region between the rivers Krishna and Kaveri was successfully brought under control.