A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar | Page 7

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.[6] 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