South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c11.s1.17

c11.s1.17

Loss of hold upon the tributary kingdoms.—So far as the Dekhan and South India were concerned, the few years of disturbance following the return of Malik Kafur to Delhi, and the domestic trouble which occupied his attention completely were quite enough to destroy the hold of the central government upon the subordinate Hindu kingdoms. It was stated already that soon after the return of Malik Kafur to Delhi, the number of elephants and the amount of tribute due from Warangal were sent by Rudra Deo. The following three or four years were quite enough to make him negligent in this matter. During that short period a change had taken place in the government of Deogir. Ram Deo had already died in the reign of Alau-d-din and had been succeeded by Shankar Deo his eldest son; and a second change had taken place by the time Mubarak had ascended the throne, and the chief power was in the hands of a son-in-law of the late Ram Deo of Deogir. His name was Harapāla Deo, and, like an ambitious young man that he was, he thought that it was an advantageous time to throw off the yoke recently imposed upon them by the Muhammadans. In regard to the distant south, Ma'bar, Malik Kafur’s conquest did not extend to anything beyond a magnificent raid as far as Rāmēśvaram, and the destruction of a number of places of importance. There seems, however, little doubt that he left a garrison behind in Madura, the head-quarters of the Pāṇḍya Kulaśēkhara, who had fled for protection to Delhi. Whether the garrison was left to safeguard the interests of Kulaśēkhara is not clearly stated, but seems quite likely. There are good reasons for believing that a Musalman garrison continued in Madura. If it did, its authority must have been confined very narrowly, not extending in all probability to very much beyond the territory immediately round Madura. In the year following the return of Malik Kafur to Delhi, we find an enterprising Travancore ruler in occupation of practically the whole of the Chola country. This was Ravi Varman Kulaśēkhara, who was born in the year A.D. 1266-7. He fought early against a Vīra Pāṇḍya, in all likelihood the Bir Pandi or the Tira Pandi of the Muhammadan historians, and marched into the territory of the Pāṇḍyas and the Cholas soon after Malik Kafur left for Delhi. He was as far north as Tiruvaḍi in the South Arcot district in A.D. 1313. In A.D. 1313-14 he was in Kāñchi, having celebrated his coronation on the banks of river Vēgavati in his fourth year, a stream that runs through the town of Kāñchi.¹ If this means anything, he felt justified in anointing himself ruler over the Tamil country in succession to the Imperial Cholas, and their Pāṇḍya successors. Records in Śrīrangam of the same year, or the following, show him as having overcome in battle a rival of his by name Vīra Pāṇḍya, whom he drove for shelter to Konkan.² Another record of his in Poonamalli gives him credit for a victory over a Sundara Pāṇḍya. This record shows the two fishes of the Pāṇḍyas surmounted by an elephant-goad, a certain indication of Kēraḷa ascendency over the Pāṇḍya. The presence of this ruler in the Tamil country and what he did there during the period indicate that the garrison left in Madura could have been only a guard of protection to the Pāṇḍya Kulaśēkhara and could have been no more.³ So then when Mubarak ascended the throne and was ready to turn his attention to the South in the second year of his administration he had to do the conquest of South India over again.