Previous Year Question

All four statements are correct. The Portuguese writer Fernão Nuniz visited Vijayanagara in the sixteenth century, and his account is an important foreign source for the social and administrative life of the Vijayanagara Empire.

He records that the Vijayanagara royal establishment included women wrestlers; some women were astrologers and soothsayers; and there were also women who maintained accounts of expenditure within the palace and prepared records concerning the affairs of the kingdom.

Nuniz further mentions other roles performed by women. Some were associated with music and instrumental performance, while his description also refers to female judges, bailiffs and women who guarded the palace at night. This indicates that women's functions within the Vijayanagara royal establishment were not confined merely to domestic activities.