South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.s1.42

Language: English

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Ibn Batuta in South India.—It was during this period that the Algerian traveller Ibn Batuta who entered India in A.D. 1333 and resided in the court of Sultan Muhammad for about ten years, stayed sometime in South India in the course of his embassy to China in behalf of the emperor. Sultan Muhammad received an embassy from China requesting permission to repair or rebuild a temple in a place called Sambhal, probably the one in Eastern Rajputana. The Sultan declined permission on the ground that under the Muhammadan law it was not permissible to allow of the erection of heretical temples unless those that wish to build them paid the Jiziya (poll-tax on infidels). If the Celestial Emperor would agree to put himself on those terms Muhammad would have no objection to grant the permission. Ibn Batuta with the necessary paraphernalia of the mission started from Delhi and proceeded across India to the coast of Konkan, wherefrom he proceeded along the coast by way of Goa, but took ship for Calicut at a port called Kandahar. He halted at Honawar (Hinur) where he remained a guest of Sultan Jamalu-d-din Muhammad. After a three days' sail from there he reached the island Sindabur; therefrom he set forward on the two months' march along the coast to Kuḷam (Quilon). He had to pass through the territory of ‘the twelve Sultans of Malabar,’ passing through the towns of Abusah and Fakanur. He came to Mangalore after a three days' sail from the latter place.

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The next important port that he touched at was Hili (near Cannanore) which at that time was one of the three ports of call for the Chinese merchants on the Malabar coast, namely, Hili, Calicut and Kuḷam. Starting again from there, he passed Jarfattan and two other coast towns, Dahfattan and Budfattan, till he reached Fandaraina. Starting thence he reached Calicut where the embassy was to take ship on its voyage to China. There happened to be at the time in this port thirteen Chinese vessels composed of the three kinds; large ships or Junks, the middle-sized ones called *Zan*, and the small ones known as *Kakams*. Each junk was manned by 600 sailors and carried 400 warriors. They contained decks, cabins, saloons and holds for merchandize. Each oar of these ships was worked by fifteen men, and every junk was accompanied by three of the smaller craft. Three of these ships were set apart for the imperial mission, and before all of the men could embark all the junks had to leave the port owing to stress of weather, and several of them suffered shipwreck. Ibn Batuta who remained on the shore was left there and the Kakam containing all his belongings set sail as soon as it saw the fate that had overtaken the fleet as a whole. Ibn Batuta hearing that the Kakam would put in at Kuḷam started towards the place by the river-way and reached Kuḷam in safety in ten days. He found it a handsome town frequented by Chinese merchants, the port being most conveniently situated for them.

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The town was under its Hindu ruler. He therefore met the Chinese envoys who had travelled down from Delhi and who had also suffered shipwreck in the voyage. Giving up the idea of returning to Delhi which he entertained for a little while, he accepted the advice of an imperial agent at Calicut and proceeded to Honawar, where he was the respected guest of the Sultan. He took part in an expedition against the island of Sindabur which was ultimately conquered by the Sultan of Honawar. While there he learnt from two of his slaves that managed to return to India, that all his property including his slaves were taken possession of by others and had been dispersed over Java, China and Bengal. Notwithstanding this depressing news he returned to Sindabur as he promised, and, as disturbances broke out there again, he left the place and reaching Calicut resolved to pay a visit to the Maldive islands. There he stayed for sometime and contracted relations that made his departure difficult. Finally he managed to obtain permission to depart. He out. It is just possible that he also fell in fighting against the Sultans of Madura about that particular period, say about A.D. 1345, that Muhammad bin Tughlak had involved himself in the greatest difficulties in his empire, and there was a famine if the chronology of the Muhammadan historians could be accepted without question.

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The Sultan, Muhammad, perpetrated the double blunder of recalling the capable Katlagh Khan from Deogir and appointing the incompetent and unpopular slave Aziz Himar, Governor of Malva, whose perfidy to ‘the foreign amirs’, at the instance of the Sultan himself, created the rebellion in Gujarat which terminated only after the death of the Sultan. Nasarat Khan broke out in rebellion in Bidar and Einu-l-Mulk of Oudh followed near the imperial head-quarters at Sarg-Dwari. It is to this date that the Muhammadan historians refer the rising in Telingana under Krishnappa Nayaka,¹ one of the sons of Pratāparudra II of Warangal. This series of rebellions all over the empire would not have been lost upon the more distant south. There is an inscription of date A.D. 1328 when a Māchaya Daṇṇāyaka was ruling at Penugoṇḍa as a subordinate of Vīra Baḷḷāḷa III. Somewhat later Ibn Batuta himself says that his friend at Honawar, Jamalu-d-din Muhammad was the greatest Sultan in the West Coast. He was himself subordinate to ‘an infidel king whose name is Horaib.’ This Horaib could be no other than Hariappa Uḍaiyar or Harihara, the eldest of the five brothers to whom is given the credit of having founded the empire of Vijayanagar. This must have been before A.D. 1344. The latest known date for this Harihara is A.D. 1346.¹ A record of date equal to A. D.

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1352 (Śaka 1274)² refers to ‘Vīra Bukka Rāyalu, ruling at Dhorasamudra and Penugoṇḍa.’ The same grant refers to Bukka as an ‘elevator of the Hoysala empire.’ It would be difficult to regard this position of Bukka as having been achieved in a very short time, and by a person unconnected with the Hoysala administration. There is one other fact which exhibits a similar tendency and which must be noted here. In the early wars of Alau-d-din Bahmani when he marched south from Daulatabad after the death of Muhammad bin Tughlak there figures on the southern frontier, and therefore the more uncertain frontier of his, a Hindu chieftain by name Harib in the region of the Konkan coast up to Jamkhaṇḍi. A little further to the east of it between Bijapur and Gulbarga figures another Hindu chief by name Kapras; and further east another Hindu chieftain still of the name Kampraz. This has reference to the year A.D. 1352. These three Hindu chieftains are obviously no other than Hariappa (Harib), Bukkappa Razu (Kapraz) and Kampa Razu (Kampana, Kamparazu), the three elder of the five brothers to whom inscriptions of the time ascribe the foundation of the empire of Vijayanagar; the two other brothers Muddappa and Mārappa are found just behind this front line.

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One of them was the Viceroy obviously under Hariappa of the Malē and Tuḷu Rājya with his capital at Āraga in the Shimoga district of Mysore, and the other was in charge of Muḷbāgal Mahārājya in the south-eastern corner of Mysore, and fronting the Tamil country. This series of facts that emerge from a scrutiny of the inscriptional records of the period leads necessarily to the inference that the wars were still going on, and the kingdom of the Hoysala had to fight on the two sides, of which the northern side presented this impenetrable wall of garrisons under the five brothers, fighting to stem the new flood of Bahmani invasions and keep it within its bounds.