A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar by Robert Sewell (short story to read TXT) 📕

princes rode on horseback together, between ranks of beautiful boys and girls, who waved plates of gold and silver flowers98 over their heads as they advanced, and then threw them to be gathered by the populace. After this the inhabitants of the city made offerings, both men and women, according to their rank. After passing through a square directly in the centre of the city,[99] the relations of Dewul Roy, who had lined the streets in crowds, made their obeisance and offerings, and joined the cavalcade on foot, marching before the princes. Upon their arrival at the palace gate, the sultan and roy dismounted from their horses, and ascended a splendid palanquin, set with valuable jewels, in which they were carried together to the apartments prepared for the reception of the bride and bridegroom, when Dewul Roy took his leave, and retired to his own palace. The sultan, after being treated with royal magnificence for three days, took his leave of the roy, who pressed upon him richer presents than before given, and attended him four miles on his way, when he returned to the city.

“Sultan Feroze Shaw was enraged at his not going with him to his camp, and said to Meer Fuzzul Oollah that he would one day have his revenge for the affront offered him by such neglect. This declaration being told to Dewul Roy, he made some insolent remarks, so that, notwithstanding the connection of family, their hatred was not calmed.”

Firuz returned after this to his capital and sent for the lovely Pertal, and on her arrival, finding that her beauty surpassed all report, he gave her in marriage to his eldest son, Hasan Khan, when “the knot was tied amid great rejoicings and princely magnificence.” The lady’s husband is described by Firishtah as being “a weak and dissipated prince.” He was heir to the throne, but was easily ousted by the valiant Ahmad “Khankhanan,” and lived privately at Firuzabad, “entirely devoted to redolence and pleasure.” The last we hear of him is that his usurping uncle, Ahmad Shah I., treated him kindly, “gave him the palace of Firozeabad for his residence, with an ample jaghire (estate), and permission to hunt or take his pleasure within eight miles round his palace, without restriction to time or form.” Hasan “was more satisfied with this power of indulging his appetites than with the charge of empire. While his uncle lived he enjoyed his ease, and no difference ever happened between them; but he was afterwards blinded and kept confined to the palace of Firozeabad.” This must have been after A.D. 1434.

Deva Raya I. lived till at least 1412 A.D., and was succeeded by his son Vira-Vijaya, whom Nuniz calls “Visaya,” and who, he says, reigned six years. The last extant inscription of Deva Raya I. is dated in A.D. 1412 — 13, the first of his successor Vijaya in 1413 — 14. Vijaya’s last known inscription is one of 1416 — 17, and the first yet known of his successor, his eldest son, Deva Raya II., is dated Monday, June 26, 1424 — 25. Nuniz gives Deva Raya II. a reign of twenty-five years.

I am inclined to think that Deva Raya II. began to reign in 1419, for the following reason. The informants of Nuniz stated that during Vijaya’s reign he “did nothing worth relating,” and the chronicle records that during the reign which followed, namely that of Deva Raya II., there was “constant warfare.” Now we have it from Firishtah that in 1417 Firuz, Sultan of Kulbarga, commenced a war of aggression against the Hindus of Telingana He besieged the fortress of Pangul,[100] seventy miles north-east of Adoni, for a period of two years, but the attempt to reduce it ended in failure owing to a pestilence breaking out amongst both men and horses.

“Many of the first nobility deserted the camp and tied with their followers to their jaghires. At this crisis Dewul Roy collected his army, and having obtained aid from the surrounding princes, even to the Raja of Telingana (Warangal), marched against the sultan with a vast host of horse and foot.”

This then took place in 1419 A.D., and since this energetic action was not consonant with the character of Vijaya, the FAINEANT sovereign, “who did nothing worth recording” in all his career, we must suppose that it took place as soon as Deva Raya, his successor, was crowned; when the nobles surrounding him (he was, I believe, quite young when he began to reign)[101] filled with zeal and ambition, roused the Hindu troops and in the king’s name plunged into war against their country’s hereditary foe.

If this be correct, the reign of Deva Raya II., granting that it lasted as stated by Nuniz for twenty-five years, ended in A.D. 1444. Now the chronicle tells us a story of how this Deva Raya’s son and successor, “Pina Rao,”[102] was attacked by his nephew with a poisoned dagger, and died from the effects of his wounds after a lapse of six months. Abdur Razzak, more reliable because he was not only a contemporary but was at Vijayanagar at the time, relates the same anecdote of Deva Raya II. himself, making the would-be assassin the king’s brother, and definitely fixing the date beyond a shadow of a doubt. The event occurred on some day between November 1442 and April 1443 — the outside limits of Razzak’s visit to Calicut — during his stay at which place he says it happened. Abdur Razzak does not mention the king’s death, and this therefore had not supervened up to the time of the traveller leaving the capital in December 1443. On the assumption that we need not be too particular about Nuniz’s “six months,” we may conclude that the attack was made about the month of April 1443, and that Deva Raya II. died early in 1444 A.D. There is still, however, a difficulty, as will be noticed below, inscriptions giving us the name of a Deva Raya as late as 1449 A.D., but it is just possible that this was another king of the same name.

Putting together the facts given above, we find that the twenty-five years of the reign of Deva Raya II. lay between 1419 and 1444 A.D.

CHAPTER 6

Deva Raya II. (A.D. 1419 to 1444 or (?) 1449)

A fresh war, 1419 — Success of Vijayanagar — Death of Firuz — Sultan Ahmad attacks Deva Raya — The latter’s adventure and narrow escape — Ahmad at the gates of the city — He nearly loses his life — Submission of Deva Raya — Fall of Warangal — Sultan Ala-ud-din — Deva Raya’s precautions — His attempted assassination, 1433 — The story as told by Abdur Razzak — Expedition against Kulbarga — Improvements at the capital — Probable date of the kings death — Was there a King Deva Raya III.?

There was war then with Kulbarga in 1419, Deva Raya II. being king of Vijayanagar. The Sultan had been unsuccessful in his attack on the Warangal fortress, Pangul, and the troops of Vijayanagar marched against him with horse, foot, and elephants. Firuz Shah gave battle forthwith, though he judged his forces to be inferior. Firishtah does not mention where the fight took place.

“Meer Fuzzul Oollah, who commanded the troops of Islaam, charged the infidels with heroic vigour, and, routing their center, proceeded to attack their right wing. He was on the point of gathering the flowers of victory, when one of his own attendants, bribed for the purpose by Dewul Roy, gave him a mortal wound on the head, and he instantly quaffed the sherbet of martyrdom. This fatal event changed the fortune of the day; the sultan was defeated, and with the utmost difficulty, by the most surprising and gallant efforts, made his escape from the field. The Hindoos made a general massacre of the mussulmauns, and erected a platform with their heads on the field of battle. They followed the sultan into his own country, which they wasted with fire and sword, took many places, broke down many mosques and holy places, slaughtered the people without mercy; by their actions seeming to discharge the treasured malice and resentment of ages. Sultan Firoze Shaw, in the exigence of distress, requested aid of the sultan of Guzarat, who, having but just acceded to the throne, could afford none. At last fortune took a turn favourable to his affairs, and the enemy, after repeated battles, were expelled from his dominions by the Sultan’s brother, Khankhanan; but these misfortunes dwelt on the mind of Firoze Shaw, now old, and he fell into a lingering disorder and lowness of spirits.”

The Sultan desired the throne for his son Hasan, husband of the beautiful Pertal, but on Ahmad Khankhanan taking up arms to support his intended usurpation and advancing, supported by most of the nobles, to the capital, Firuz gave way and nominated him Sultan in his stead.

Firuz died on September 24, A.D. 1422,[103] and Khankhanan became Sultan of Kulbarga under the title of Ahmad Shah I.

The first act of the new monarch, after “impressing the minds of his people with affection to his government” — probably, that is, after an interval of a few months — was to strengthen his army in order to take revenge for the invasions of the Raya; and having made all preparations he advanced to the attack. Deva Raya’s generals collected their troops, sent for aid to Warangal, and marched to the Tungabhadra where they encamped. From this it appears that they had retired from the Doab after their successful raid. The Sultan arrived on the north bank of the river opposite the Hindu camp, and LAAGERED, if we may use the term now in fashion. Firishtah says that he “surrounded his camp with carriages (carts and waggons), after the usage of Room (Turkey in Europe), to prevent the enemy’s foot from making night-attacks. Here he halted for forty days.” We are now, therefore, probably in the dry season at the beginning of the year A.D. 1423, for if the river had been in flood there would have been no fear of the enemy’s crossing it. In the early months of the Christian year that river is usually shallow in the open country east of the Hindu capital and away from the hills that surround it, having only thin streams running in its rocky bed. Indeed, Firishtah himself tells us that the river was at that time fordable.

Then ensued a dramatic episode. The Muhammadan cavalry had crossed the river and devastated the country of the Raya, who remained inactive, and the Sultan determined on a direct frontal attack. The troops of Warangal deserted the Raya and withdrew.

“Early in the morning Lodi Khan, Aulum Khan, and Dillawer Khan, who had marched during the night and forded the river at distance, reached the environs of the enemy’s camp. It happened that the roy was sleeping, attended by only a few persons, in a garden, close to which was a thick plantation of sugar-cane.[104] A body of the mussulmauns entered the garden for plunder, and Dewul Roy, being alarmed, fled almost naked into the sugar-cane plantation. Here he was found by the soldiers, who thought him only a common person, and — having loaded him with a bundle of canes, obliged him to run with it before them. Dewul Roy, rejoiced at his being undiscovered, held his peace, and took up the burden readily, hoping that he should be discharged as a poor person or be able to make his escape.

“They had not gone far when the alarm of Sultan Ahmed Shaw’s having crossed the river, and the loss of the roy, filled the camp, and the Hindoos began to disperse. The sultan entered the camp, and Dewul Roy’s masters, hoping now for more valuable plunder than sugar-cane, hastened to join their own fronds, leaving him to