A Forgotten Empire (vijayanagar): a Contribution to the History of India

CHAPTER 1. Introduction

Introduction

Introductory remarks -- Sources of information -- Sketch of history of Southern India down to A.D. 1336 -- A Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquest -- The opening date, as given by Nuniz, wrong -- "Togao Mamede" or Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi -- His career and character.

In the year 1336 A.D., during the reign of Edward III. of England, there occurred in India an event which almost instantaneously changed the political condition of the entire south. With that date the volume of ancient history in that tract closes and the modern begins. It is the epoch of transition from the Old to the New.

This event was the foundation of the city and kingdom of Vijayanagar. Prior to A.D. 1336 all Southern India had lain under the domination of the ancient Hindu kingdoms, -- kingdoms so old that their origin has never been traced, but which are mentioned in Buddhist edicts rock-cut sixteen centuries earlier; the Pandiyans at Madura, the Cholas at Tanjore, and others. When Vijayanagar sprang into existence the past was done with for ever, and the monarchs of the new state became lords or overlords of the territories lying between the Dakhan and Ceylon.

There was no miracle in this. It was the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India. When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries.

And yet in the present day the very existence of this kingdom is hardly remembered in India; while its once magnificent capital, planted on the extreme northern border of its dominions and bearing the proud title of the "City of Victory," has entirely disappeared save for a few scattered ruins of buildings that were once temples or palaces, and for the long lines of massive walls that constituted its defences. Even the name has died out of men's minds and memories, and the remains that mark its site are known only as the ruins lying near the little village of Hampe.

Its rulers, however, in their day swayed the destinies of an empire far larger than Austria, and the city is declared by a succession of European visitors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to have been marvellous for size and prosperity -- a city with which for richness and magnificence no known western capital could compare. Its importance is shown by the fact that almost all the struggles of the Portuguese on the western coast were carried on for the purpose of securing its maritime trade; and that when the empire fell in 1565, the prosperity of Portuguese Goa fell with it never to rise again.

Our very scanty knowledge of the events that succeeded one another in the large area dominated by the kings of Vijayanagar has been hitherto derived partly from the scattered remarks of European travellers and the desultory references in their writings to the politics of the inhabitants of India; partly from the summaries compiled by careful mediaeval historians such as Barros, Couto, and Correa, who, though to a certain degree interested in the general condition of the country, yet confined themselves mostly to recording the deeds of the European colonisers for the enlightenment of their European readers; partly from the chronicles of a few Muhammadan writers of the period, who often wrote in fear of the displeasure of their own lords; and partly from Hindu inscriptions recording grants of lands to temples and religious institutions, which documents, when viewed as state papers, seldom yield us more than a few names and dates. The two chronicles, however, translated and printed at the end of this volume, will be seen to throw a flood of light upon the condition of the city of Vijayanagar early in the sixteenth century, and upon the history of its successive dynasties; and for the rest I have attempted, as an introduction to these chronicles, to collect all available materials from the different authorities alluded to and to weld them into a consecutive whole, so as to form a foundation upon which may hereafter be constructed a regular history of the Vijayanagar empire. The result will perhaps seem disjointed, crude, and uninteresting; but let it be remembered that it is only a first attempt. I have little doubt that before very long the whole history of Southern India will be compiled by some writer gifted with the power of "making the dry bones live;" but meanwhile the bones themselves must be collected and pieced together, and my duty has been to try and construct at least the main portions of the skeleton.

Before proceeding to details we must shortly glance at the political condition of India in the first half of the fourteenth century, remembering that up to that time the Peninsula had been held by a number of distinct Hindu kingdoms, those of the Pandiyans at Madura and of the Cholas at Tanjore being the most important.

The year 1001 A.D. saw the first inroad into India of the Muhammadans from over the north-west border, under their great leader Mahmud of Ghazni. He invaded first the plains of the Panjab, then Multan, and afterwards other places. Year after year he pressed forward and again retired. In 1021 he was at Kalinga; in 1023 in Kathiawar; but in no case did he make good his foothold on the country. His expeditions were raids and nothing more. Other invasions, however, followed in quick succession, and after the lapse of two centuries the Muhammadans were firmly and permanently established at Delhi. War followed war, and from that period Northern India knew no rest. At the end of the thirteenth century the Muhammadans began to press southwards into the Dakhan. In 1293 Ala-ud-din Khilji, nephew of the king of Delhi, captured Devagiri. Four years later Gujarat was attacked. In 1303 the reduction of Warangal was attempted. In 1306 there was a fresh expedition to Devagiri. In 1309 Malik Kafur, the celebrated general, with an immense force swept into the Dakhan and captured Warangal. The old capital of the Hoysala Ballalas at Dvarasamudra was taken in 1310, and Malik Kafur went to the Malabar coast where he erected a mosque, and afterwards returned to his master with enormous booty. Fresh fighting took place in 1312. Six years later Mubarak of Delhi marched to Devagiri and inhumanly flayed alive its unfortunate prince, Haripala Deva, setting up his head at the gate of his own city. In 1323 Warangal fell.

Thus the period at which our history opens, about the year 1330, found the whole of Northern India down to the Vindhya mountains firmly under Moslem rule, while the followers of that faith had overrun the Dakhan and were threatening the south with the same fate. South of the Krishna the whole country was still under Hindu domination, but the supremacy of the old dynasties was shaken to its base by the rapidly advancing terror from the north. With the accession in 1325 of Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi things became worse still. Marvellous stories of his extraordinary proceedings circulated amongst the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and there seemed to be no bound to his intolerance, ambition, and ferocity.

Everything, therefore, seemed to be leading up to but one inevitable end -- the ruin and devastation of the Hindu provinces; the annihilation of their old royal houses, the destruction of their religion, their temples, their cities. All that the dwellers in the south held most dear seemed tottering to its fall.

Suddenly, about the year 1344 A.D., there was a check to this wave of foreign invasion -- a stop -- a halt -- then a solid wall of opposition; and for 250 years Southern India was saved.

The check was caused by a combination of small Hindu states -- two of them already defeated, Warangal and Dvarasamudra -- defeated, and therefore in all probability not over-confident; the third, the tiny principality of Anegundi. The solid wall consisted of Anegundi grown into the great empire of the Vijayanagar. To the kings of this house all the nations of the south submitted.

If a straight line be drawn on the map of India from Bombay to Madras, about half-way across will be found the River Tungabhadra, which, itself a combination of two streams running northwards from Maisur, flows in a wide circuit north and east to join the Krishna not far from Kurnool. In the middle of its course the Tungabhadra cuts through a wild rocky country lying about forty miles north-west of Bellary, and north of the railway line which runs from that place to Dharwar. At this point, on the north bank of the river, there existed about the year 1330 a fortified town called Anegundi, the "Nagundym" of our chronicles, which was the residence of a family of chiefs owning a small state in the neighbourhood. They had, in former years, taken advantage of the lofty hills of granite which cover that tract to construct a strong citadel having its base on the stream. Fordable at no point within many miles the river was full of running water at all seasons of the year, and in flood times formed in its confined bed a turbulent rushing torrent with dangerous falls in several places. Of the Anegundi chiefs we know little, but they were probably feudatories of the Hoysala Ballalas. Firishtah declares that they had existed as a ruling family for seven hundred years prior to the year 1350 A.D.

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