A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar | Page 6

in such
names as "Kondavidu" -- it has been dropped in order to avoid an
appearance of pedantry; and I have preferred the more common
"Rajahmundry" to the more correct "Rajamahendri," "Trichinopoly" to
"Tiruchhinapalle," and so on.
This system may not be very scientific, but I trust it will prove not
unacceptable.
* * *
The name of the capital is spelt in many different ways by the
chroniclers and travellers. The usual Portuguese spelling was
"Bisnaga;" but we have also the forms "Bicheneger" (NIKITIN),
"Bidjanagar" (ABDUR RAZZAK), "Bizenegalia" (CONTI),
"Bisnagar," "Beejanuggur," &c.

A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar

CHAPTER 1
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