South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.s1.25.1

c13.s1.25.1

said to have been ruling in great happiness¹ at his ancestral capital. This rebuilding of the capital by the Hoysala exhibits the Hindu rulers of the South taking advantage of the confusion that prevailed at head-quarters before Mubarak made his position secure on the throne at Delhi. We do not hear much of Vīra Baḷḷāḷa III from inscriptional sources till A.D. 1328-29, the year in which Muhammad-bin-Tughlak sent an invasion to the south after his own abortive expedition to Warangal. In spite of the re-building of his capital, the Hoysala does not figure either in the organization of the Mahratta country by Mubarak and the placing of Muhammadan garrisons in the various forts along the Hoysala frontier; or in the subsequent invasions of the Ma'bar (Tamil country) by Khusru Khan. He probably was able to reorganize his resources quietly and unobserved. It was possibly about this time that he went farther afield from Dvārasamudra and laid the foundations of the city generally called Hosapaṭṭaṇa or Virūpākṣapaṭṭaṇa, which ultimately became Vijayanagar, to secure his northern frontier. In the year A.D. 1328-29,² we hear of Vīra Baḷḷāḷa for the first time at Uṇṇamulai Paṭṭaṇam (Tiruvaṇṇāmalai).³ He was ruling in peace and happiness at the same place in A.D. 1342. In the meanwhile one record of his states that in A.D. 1339 (Śaka 1261) he was ruling in happiness in Śrī Vīra Vijaya Virūpākṣapura⁴ as his residential capital (Neḷēvīḍu).