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

in the wasting and depopulation of large tracts.

[483] — See above, p. 294, note 1.

[484] — Spelt below “Meliquy niby” and “Mileque neby;” evidently for MALLIK NAIB, the king’s deputy.

[485] — Above, p. 19 ff.

[486] — Deva Raya. This was the general title of the Vijayanagar kings; thus, Harihara Deva Raya, Bukka Deva Raya, Krishna Deva Raya, &c. This first king is given no personal name by Nuniz. There were afterwards two kings who are known to history by the names Deva Raya I. and Deva Raya II., with no personal name prefixed.

[487] — This same tale is told of many kings and chiefs in Southern India. The “Tazkarat-ul-Muluk” (IND. ANT., May 1899, p. 129) also relates it of the Bahmani Sultan Ahmad Shah (1422 — 35), alleging that it was the behaviour of a hunted hare that induced him to make Bidar his capital.

[488] — This was the great Sringeri Guru, Madhavacharya, surnamed VIDYARANYA, or “Forest of Learning.” This derivation of the name of the city is very common, but is believed to be erroneous.

[489] — The large temple of Virupaksha at Hampe.

[490] — Bukka Raya.

[491] — PUREOYRE probably represents “Harihara.” This king was not the first to coin PARDAOS or pagodas. A pagoda of Bukka I. is known (IND. ANT., xx. 302).

[492] — See above, p. 51. There is no name amongst those of this dynasty with which this can be at present connected.

[493] — Ceylon.

[494] — Coromandel (note, p. 239 above).

[495] — Vijaya Rao.

[496] — Quilon.

[497] — Pulicat, near Madras. This was an important province of Vijayanagar in later years.

[498] — Tenasserim.

[499] — PINA = CHINNA in Telugu, CHIKKA in Kanarese, and means “little.” Pina Raya or Chikka Raya was the title applied to the Crown Prince (above, p. 223). The derivation given by Nuniz is plainly wrong.

[500] — Abdur Razzak relates the same story, and fixes the event as having taken place between November 1442 and April 1445 A.D., “while he was at Calicut” (above, p. 73).

[501] — This seems so imply that the nephew of the king had been one of the twenty ministers (REGEDORES) mentioned in the chronicle.

[502] — SIC in orig.

[503] — Virupaksha Raya.

[504] — NARASHIMHA. He had apparently large tracts of country under his charge to the east of the capital towards the east coast. His relationship to the sovereign has always been a matter of doubt.

[505] — Persia (Ormuz) and Aden. The latter were Arabs.

[506] — “Rachol” is Raichur; “Odegary” represents Udayagiri; “Conadolgi” probably is Kondavid, AOLGI for DRUG, a mountain fortress.

[507] — This account of the second Narasa and the family relationship differs altogether from the results obtained from epigraphical study, according to which the second Narasa was elder son of the first Narasa or Narasimha Krishna Deva being the latter’s younger son.

[508] — Pennakonda.

[509] — CF. “Temersea,” p. 250, and note. This, however, was not the man there alluded to, though he bore the same name.

[510] — Later on we learn that this man’s name was Codemerade (p. 360).

[511] — Chandragiri, the capital of the kingdom in its decadent days.

[512] — Inscriptions do not give us the names of any sons having names like these. “Crismarao” probably represents Krishna Deva Raya, son of the first Narasa or Narasimha, and brother of the second Narasa, often called Vira Narasimha.

[513] — Saluva Timma. This man belonged apparently to the new royal family, whose family name was Saluva. He was the powerful minister of Krishna Deva Raya, hut died disgraced, imprisoned, and blinded. He is constantly mentioned in inscriptions of the period.

[514] — Perhaps “Basava Raya,” but as yet no brother of Krishna Deva is known bearing that name.

[515] — Raichur.

[516] — Mudkal.

[517] — Udayagiri.

[518] — Some say uncle.

[519] — In the MS. EM QUE AVIA is evidently a mistake for E QUE AVIA.

[520] — Kondavid.

[521] — I cannot identify this river. There is none such, to my knowledge, twelve miles or thereabouts from Kondavid. “Salt” may perhaps mean brackish.

[522] — Kondapalle.

[523] — Rajahmundry. The first syllable has been accidentally dropped, perhaps by the copyist.

[524] — Senhor Lopes’s “Chronica” has “HU HOME SEU QUE AQUELLE TEMPO D AQUELLE TEMPO MUITO SABIA.” Mr. Ferguson suggests, and with good reason, that for the second TEMPO we should read JOGO. I have translated the passage accordingly. Senhor Lopes concurs.

[525] — The original MS. has TOMARIA SUAS TERRAS — “would take his lands.” Possibly the first of these words should have been TORNARIA, in which case the sentence would mean that the King “would restore the lands” to his enemy.

[526] — I am unable to identify this country. The description of the town answers to Vellore in North Arcot, the fine old fort at which place is surrounded with a deep moat. According to tradition, this place was captured by Krishna Deva Raya from a Reddi chief.

[527] — Blank in the original.

[528] — ELREY DAQUEM.. This may be “the king on this side” or “the king of the Dakhan.” The former seems most probable, and I think that the reference is to the forces of Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golkonda (see the Muhammadan account of affairs at this time, given above, pp. 132 — 135.)

[529] — Muhammad, Mahomet, I.E. he was of the Prophet’s kindred.

[530] — The text is confused here.

[531] — The following is Barros’s account of this affair of “Cide Mercar.” After mentioning the terms of the treaty between Vijayanagar and Bijapur, one of which provided for the reciprocal extradition of criminals and debtors, he writes: —

“Crisnarao, knowing that he could catch the Hidalcao in this trap, called a Moor by name Cide Mercar, who had been in his service for many years, and bade him take forty thousand pardaos and go to Goa to buy horses of those that had come from Persia. Crisnaro wrote letters to our Captain … on purpose so that the affair might become widely known to all. Cide Mercar, either tempted by the large sum of money in his charge, or swayed by a letter which they say was sent to him by the Hidalcao, when he arrived at a TANADARIA called Ponda, three leagues from Goa, fled to the Hidalcao from there. The Hidalcao as soon as he arrived sent him to Chaul, saying hat he bestowed on him this TANADARIA as he was an honourable man of the family of Mahamed …; but in a few days he disappeared from there, and they say that the king ordered his murder after he had taken from him the forty thousand pardaos.”

[532] — “Madre” stands for Imad, the Birar Sultan; “Virido” for the Barid Sultan of Bidar. I cannot explain Demellyno or DESTUR, unless the former be an error of the copyist for “Zemelluco” as written below, which certainly refers to the Nizam Shah. Several Portuguese writers omit the first syllable of “Nizam” In their chronicles. On p. 348 below, these names are given as Madremalluco, Zemelluco, “Destuy” and “Virido;” and therefore “Destur” and “Destuy” must mean the Qutb Shah of Golkonda, at that period Sultan Quli. On p. 349 we have the form “Descar.”

[533] — For a full discussion of this date see above, p. 140.

[534] — See above, p. 263, note. His name was Kama Naik (p 329).

[535] — SEUS ALLYFANTES. Perhaps SEUS is a clerical error for SEIS, “six.” Barros, in describing the same event, says “sixteen elephants.”

[536] — See below, p. 360, note.

[537] — Probably Ganda Rajah, brother of Saluva Timma, the minister. (See p. 284, and note to p. 361.) The initial “O” may he the article “The.”

[538] — The great vassal lords of Madura, who after the fall of the kingdom established themselves as a dynasty of independent sovereigns, descended, so Barradas tells us, from the “Page of the betel” (above, p. 230).

[539] — I think that the second C in this name is an error for E, and that “Comarberea” represents Kumara Virayya of Mysore (above, p. 269). Later on Nuniz spells the name “Comarberya” (below, p. 336).

[540] — Above, pp. 40, 60, 122.

[541] — LADES, for LAUDEIS, quilted tunics, doublets. The word is spelt in other places LAYDES, LAMDES, LANDYS, LAMDYS, and LANDEIS. See note, p. 276, above.

[542] — GOMEDARES, probably the modern AGOMIA or GOMIA, “a poignard.” Senhor Lopes refers me to Barros, Mendes, Pinto, &c., where the form used is GUMIA; the word being derived from the Arabic KUMMIYA, which properly means a curved dagger — “UM PUNHAL EM MEO ARCO” (MS. in Portuguese, on Morocco, in Senhor Lopes’s possession).

[543] — See above, p. 270.

[544] — Malliabad, as now called, close to Raichur. The name given by Nuniz I take to represent “Mallia (or Malliya) Banda,” probably the Hindu name. BANDA = “rock.” “Malliabad” is the name given by the Musalmans.

[545] — A small copper coin.

[546] — MINGUO, probably MOONG or green grain (“Hobson-Jobson”). Ibn Batuta calls it MUNJ, others MUNGO.

[547] — REGATOEES D ARTE.

[548] — The total cavalry and elephants of the different columns enumerated above comes to 32,600 and 551 respectively.

[549] — Barros has ANCOSTAO, and Correa ANCOSCAO. The latter termination seems the most natural — CAO for KHAN. The name appears to be “Ankus Khan.” “Pomdaa” is Pomda or Ponda, close to Goa.

[550] — Dom Guterre de Monroy sailed from Portugal to India in 1515 in command of a fleet (Albuquerque, Hakluyt edition, iv. 194). In 1516 he was in command at Goa during the absence of Governor Lopo Soares at the Red Sea, between the months of February and September, and during that period attacked the Bijapur troops at Ponda, which were commanded by Ankus Khan, with some success (Barros, Dec III. l. i. c. 8). Osorio (Gibbs’ translation, ii. 235) represents De Monroy as a man of a very cruel and licentious disposition. He was married to a niece of the governor.

[551] — They believed, that is, that their prestige would give them great moral superiority over the Hindus.

[552] — This passage is obscure.

[553] — See above, p. 327 and note.

[554] — The original has CAVAS E BAUDES. The meaning of the last word is not clear.

[555] — AVYAO DE MORRER PEDIDO AUSA DA MORTE. AUSA is perhaps for OUSADIA, “boldness;” and the passage would then mean that since death appeared inevitable they should meet it half-way, and not lazily await it; they should die like soldiers in a charge, not stupidly standing still to be slaughtered.

[556] — “Sufo Larij,” Barros, Dec. III. l. iv. cap. 5. Asada Khan’s love of intrigue was proverbial amongst the Portuguese of that day.

[557] — COMO QUER QUE ACADACAO TRAZIA QUEM HIA A TERRA. A doubtful passage.

[558] — TOMAMDO A FALLDRA DA SERRA DA BAMDA DO SUL. It would be interesting to learn which range of hills is referred to.

[559] — Salabat Khan.

[560] — See above, p. 251, note.

[561] — LLAVAOCAS, for ALAVANCA, a Portuguese word for crowbar still everywhere in Ceylon.

[562] — FRAMGES, I.E. Feringhees, Franks, or Europeans.

[563] — Saluva Timma.

[564] — Rey Daquym, I.E. King of the Dakhan. This evidently refers to the Bahmani king, who was still recognised as titular sovereign, though the whole country had revolted and broken up into five independent kingdoms. For the names that precede this see note to p. 325 above.

[565] — COMECARAO DEITAR AS BARBES EM REMOLHO. This refers to the Portuguese proverb — “Quando vires arder as barbas do teu vizinho, poe (or deita) as tuas em remolho” — “When you see your neighbour’s beard on fire, steep your own in water;” or guard against like treatment. —