South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c11.2

Language: English

c11.2.1

Malik Kafur's project for an invasion of Ma'bar for the same object, plunder.—According to Amir Khusru 'the Malik represented that on the coast of Ma'bar were 500 elephants, larger than those which had been presented to the Sultan from Arangal, and that when he was engaged in the conquest of that place he had thought of possessing himself of them and that now, as the wise determination of the king, he combined the extirpation of the idolaters with this object, he was more than ever rejoiced to enter on this grand enterprise.' Amir Khusru makes it appear that having seen all the country from the hills of Ghazni to the mouths of the Ganges reduced to subjection and having effectively destroyed the prevalence of the 'Satanism' of the Hindus by the destruction of their temples and providing in their stead places for the criers to prayers in monques, Alau-d-din was consumed with the idea of spreading the light of the Muhammadan religion in the Dekhan and South India. According to the same authority Ma'bar was so distant from the city of Delhi 'that a man travelling with all expedition could only reach it after a journey of twelve months,' and there 'the arrow of any holy warrior had not yet reached.' Apart from this statement of Amir Khusru, the object of this expedition is made quite clear in what he puts in the mouth of Malik Kafur himself that what he actually coveted were the elephants of better breed, and, what went along with them of course, other items of wealth.

c11.2.2

Having in the two previous invasions brought both the Dekhan kingdoms, Deogir and Warangal under subjection there remained only two more in the farther south, the Hoysala kingdom of Dvārasamudra and the Pāṇḍya kingdom farther south again. The army left Delhi on the 24th of Jumada-l Akhir, A.H. 710 (November A.D. 1310), and marched by the bank of the Jamna and halted at Tankal for fourteen days. After taking the muster of the army at that place, they marched rapidly for twenty-one days when they arrived at Kanhun. A further march of seventeen days brought them to Gur-Ganw (Gurgam). During these seventeen days Amir Khusru says they had to pass through the ghats and the road lay across heights and depths, where even elephants became nearly invisible. That was not all, they had to pass three rivers of which the Narbada was the greatest, and the other two of about the same size but smaller than the Narbada. At the end of this march the Raja of Telingana sent twenty-three powerful elephants. They remained at Gurgam for about twenty days, taking a muster of the army and sending on the elephants in advance. According to Amir Khusru they marched on towards Gurgam and reached ultimately the river Tawi (Tapti). Having crossed it, they reached Deogir on the thirteenth of Ramzan, apparently the same year.

c11.2.3

There they halted for preparations ‘for extirpating Billal Deo and other Deos (demons).’ Here the Rai Raiyan, Ram Deo, true to his allegiance forwarded all the preparations necessary for the equipment of the army ‘to render it available for the extermination of rebels and the destruction of Bir and Dhur Samundar.’ That was not all. The Rai Raiyan, who had already sent ahead his Daḷavāy (Dalvi, Commander-in-Chief) Paras Deo (Parasuram Deo) ‘to hold the gates of access to the Bir and Dhur Samundar’ was directed by his master to see to the wants of the Muhammadan army. On the seventeenth of Ramzan, the army departed ‘from Imanabad Deogir to the Kharabad of Paras Deo Dalvi, in five stages, in which three large rivers were crossed,’ the three rivers being ‘Sini, Godaveri and Binhur (Bhima).’ Then ‘after five days the army arrived at Bandri, in the country (Ikta) of Paras Deo Dalvi, who rendered all the assistance for the ultimate conquest of “Bir Dhul and Bir Pandi.”’ At Bandri, Malik Kafur stayed sometime to obtain information of the state of things in Ma’bar. According to Amir Khusru he was informed that there were two rulers in Ma’bar, of whom the elder was Bir Pandya and the younger Sundara Pandya who till then were friendly, but had gone to war against each other at the time. ‘Billal Deo, the Rai of Dhur Samundar (Dvārasamudra), had marched down upon their cities with the object of plundering, but returned on hearing that the Muhammadan army was on the march.’