Thanjavur Nayak Dynasty | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1532–1673 | |||||||||||
 Approximate extent of the Thanjavur Nayak Kingdom, c. 1572 | |||||||||||
| Capital | Thanjavur | ||||||||||
| Common languages | Telugu, Tamil | ||||||||||
| Religion | Hinduism | ||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||
| King | |||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | 1532 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1673 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
The Thanjavur Nayak dynasty (or Thanjavur Nayak kingdom) were the rulers of Thanjavur in the 15th and 17th centuries.[1] The Nayaks, who belonged to the Telugu-speaking Balija social group[2] were originally appointed as provincial governors by the Vijayanagara Emperor in the 15th century, who divided the territory into Nayak kingdoms which were Madurai, Tanjore, Gingee and Kalahasthi. In the mid-15th century they became an independent kingdom, although they continued their alliance with the Vijayanagara Empire.[3] The Thanjavur Nayaks were notable for their patronage of literature and the arts.[4][5][6]
- ^ Vriddhagirisan, V. (1995). The Nayaks of Tanjore.
- ^
- Sheldon Pollock, ed. (2003). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. p. 413. ISBN 9780520228214.
.... in the seventeenth century, when warriors/traders from the Balija caste acquired kingship of the southern kingdoms of Madurai and Tanjavur.
- David Dean Shulman, ed. (2020). Classical Telugu Poetry. University of California Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780520344525.
..... in the Tamil country, where Telugu Balija families had established local Nāyaka states (in Senji, Tanjavur, Madurai, and elsewhere) in the course of the sixteenth century.
- Eugene F. Irschick, ed. (1969). Politics and Social Conflict in South India. University of California Press. p. 8.
The successors of the Vijayanagar empire, the Nayaks of Madura and Tanjore, were Balija Naidus
....It is told that the Nayak Kings of Madurai and Tanjore were Balijas , who had marital relations among themselves and with the Vijaya Nagara rulers, and so were appointed as the rulers of these regions.
- G. S. Ghurye, ed. (1969). Caste and Race in India. Popular Prakashan. p. 106. ISBN 9788171542055.
The Nayak kings of Madura and Tanjore were Balijas, traders by caste
- A. Satyanarayana, Mukkamala Radhakrishna Sarma, ed. (1996). Castes, Communities, and Culture in Andhra Desa, 17th & 18th Centuries, A.D. Osmania University. p. 145.
After the fall of the dynasty several Balija Nayudu chieftains rose into prominence. Tanjore and Madura kingdoms were the most important of such new kingdoms
- Francine R. Frankel, M. S. A. Rao, ed. (1989). Dominance and State Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order. Oxford University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780195620986.
The Nayak kings of Madura and Tanjore were balijas ( traders )
- Muzaffar Alam, ed. (1998). The Mughal State, 1526-1750. Oxford University Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-19-563905-6.
As an arrangement, the Golconda practice in the first half of the seventeenth century was quite similar in crucial respects to what obtained further south, in the territories of the Chandragiri ruler, and the Nayaks of Senji, Tanjavur and Madurai. Here too revenue-farming was common, and the ruling families were closely allied to an important semi-commercial, semi-warrior caste group, the Balija Naidus.
- Velcheru Narayana Rao; David Dean Shulman; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds. (1992). Symbols of Substance Court and State in Nāyaka Period Tamilnadu. Oxford University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-19-563021-3.
Originally part of the great Telugu migrations southward into the Tamil country in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Balija merchant- warriors reveal the rise of hitherto marginal, and only recently politicized.. These mobile, aggressive, land-hungry, Telugu-speaking warriors...helped to build the Nāyaka state-system and to impregnate it with their particular cultural vision; strong surviving traditions; supported by contemporary evidence, assert Balija origins and / or marital connections for the major Nāyaka dynasties in the Tamil country quite apart from the well-known Balija role in restructuring the revenue systems of Nāyaka Tanjavur and Madurai
- Sheldon Pollock, ed. (2003). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. p. 413. ISBN 9780520228214.
- ^ Harmony of Religions: Vedānta Siddhānta Samarasam of Tāyumānavar, Thomas Manninezhath
- ^ Thanjavur Nayak kings Archived 18 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Tanjore History
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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