Rise and fall of an empire
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The growth of an empire could be the result of its people usurping the resources available
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Question 1: Why are chimpanzees abundant in Africa, kangaroos in Australia and jaguars in South America? Question 2: Why did the Vijayanagara Empire emerge at Hampi and why did it decline?
We use science, in particular biological science, to answer the first question. Can we do so to answer the second? Drs. K. N. Ganeshaiah, R. Uma Shaankar and R. Vasudeva of Bangalore and Sirsi believe we can. Their paper appears in the July 25, 2007 i
ssue of Current Science. I recommend that you read it by accessing www.ias.ac.in/currsci/, going to the July 25, 2007 issue, and clicking on page 140. I shall freely quote from their article
here.
The method of science uses logic to arrive at answers. We collect as much information as we can about a problem, weave the information in a cogent and relevant fashion, and build a picture or a model that answers the question. Economy is of essence here.
Occam’s Razor, so called after the 14th century Franciscan friar and logician, demands that explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, and eliminate those that make no difference to the predictions of the model or theory. The simplest solution tends to be the best one. This is what science asks for.
Not unrelated
The Karnataka trio show that the chimpanzee question and Vijayanagara are not unrelated. Chimps spread in Africa and kangaroos in Australia because of their ability to exploit the resources of the habitat for growth, reproduction and exclusion of other competing species.
In just the same way, the growth and spread of an empire too could be viewed as the result of its people usurping the resources available for growth, prosperity and dominance of the regime. As the regime becomes strong, it also usurps resources available outside its territory through commerce or conquest.
The Vijayanagara Empire was born around AD 1333 at Anegondhi, along the banks of the Tungabhadra, near Hospet, Bellary District. It spread within two centuries to cover the entire Deccan, and declined quite rapidly by 1570 or so when the Moghuls came on. The most famous of its rulers was of course Krishnadevaraya (1505-40).
How did the empire grow into such splendour? The arrival of trading Europeans, first in trickles and then in lots, seems to have helped. How? The military strength of any regime at that time depended on horses and guns. Until the European explorers and traders such as Vasco da Gama and Albuquerque came on, it was the Arabs who held monopoly, and a seller’s market.
With the Europeans bringing in horses and at competitive prices, Vijayanagara, close enough to the coast, took advantage. Krishnadevaraya wanted more and more horses, and apparently he even offered Albuquerque 20,000 British Pounds for exclusive rights to supply horses.
And they brought the gun. The Vijayanagara kings began to trade their natural resources for the guns and horses of Europeans. And what were these natural resources? Sandalwood and spices. Indeed, Ganeshaiah, Uma Shaankar and Vasudeva argue that the political boundary of Vijayanagara was shaped by the availability of these resources in Deccan India.
Prized commodity
Sandalwood was a prized commodity for trade, and the empire annexed over time the Southern peninsula, which had over 80 per cent of sandalwood plantations. History records the European demand for this material, for which the Portuguese came to Goa, traded with Vijayanagara, and also sent out military units to the Timor Islands in Southeast Asia, where sandalwood grew in abundance. The other major source of wealth was spices, particularly pepper. With the great demand of the trading Europeans for it, Vijayanagara was in a position of advantage. This is why they marched west, possessed pepper plantations there and further enriched the empire. Besides sandal and spices, there were diamonds and precious stones. The Raichur Doab, bounded by the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers and the neighbouring Rayalaseema were for a long time the lone source of diamonds in the world. The Vijayanagara empire naturally took control of the area and grew in wealth and strength, until diamonds were discovered in South Africa and Brazil, when trade shifted from this monopoly to those British and Portuguese strongholds.
Indeed, even well after Vijayanagara declined and the Golconda kingdom came up in Telengana, diamond was a major wealth commodity up until 1750s.
The positioning of Hampi as the capital — close enough to the sources of sandal, spice and diamonds — might not have been accidental. Here then is the parallel between chimpanzees in Africa, jaguars in South America and Vijayanagara; Darwinism at the empire level!
A lasting move of benefit that the rulers made was to promote irrigation and irrigated agriculture. In fact, they might be credited with the invention of special agriculture zones, where farmers settled down, cultivated grains, leading to stable growth of the empire. Help was taken from the Europeans to build lakes, bunds, dams and canals. This use of land and water ushered a green revolution well before the present, albeit on a smaller scale.
What caused the fall of the empire, in such a short time between 1540 and 1580? It was coming anyway, because of a host of reasons: overexploitation of resources, loss of control over existing ones, and competition from abroad.
The growing British rule took away even the stronghold on sandal and spices. Ironically, as the researchers note, just as the arrival of Europeans provided a surge for growth, establishment of British rule in India cost its survival.
How far is this empire Darwinism valid? There is another such example, from the Easter Islands of the Pacific. Native populations there usurped their major resource, the jubilia palm tree. They used it for just about everything, to build canoes, use as timber and so forth.
Depletion
They even ate its nuts in great measure as food. This then led to depletion of the palm. They then hunted out the birds and lizards for food, and they vanished too. In a very short time, the population of Easter Islanders plummeted from many thousands to a few hundreds. There is a lesson in all this, but as the song goes: “Where have all the flowers gone…when will they ever learn?”
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN
DBALA@LVPEI.ORG 
