South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.s1.51

Language: English

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It was apparently after the death of this Vīra Ballāḷa and possibly after that of his son, that the chieftain brothers who took upon themselves the responsibility of clearing South India of the Muhammadans should have continued the policy of the last Hoysalas. It is worth remarking that the wars of Kumāra Kampana, the son of Bukka, detailed in the Kamparāya Charitam of Gaṅgādēvi may have to be brought in into this interval A.D. 1343 to A.D. 1355-56. The two enemies against whom Kamparāya won victories were the Śambuvarāyans of the North Arcot and Chingleput districts, and the Sultan of Madura. Without going into the full details, this poem and several other works, Telugu and Sanskrit, state that Kampa and his colleagues in the campaign overthrew one Śambuvarāyan, and restored the kingdom to another taking the title Śambuvarāya (or Sans. Champurāya) Sthāpanāchārya (he that established Śambuvarāya in his position). It must also be remembered that the kingdom of these chieftains is called Rāja Gambhīrā Rājyam.¹ This Rājagambhīra Rājyam was hitherto taken to mean either the Pāṇḍya country because a certain Pāṇḍya assumed the title, or the Chola country because a Chola king, at a slightly earlier period, had assumed this title. But it now turns out to be neither. The name of the kingdom seems to be derived from the hill fortress which was its citadel, and which apparently refers to Paḍaivīḍu in the Arni Jaghir. This is not all.

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One of the predecessors of this Śambuvarāyan¹ called himself Rājagambhīra Śambuvarāyan in an inscription of A.D. 1258 in Paḍaivīḍu itself. The epic of Gaṅgādēvi refers to the siege of the hill Rājagambhīram in the course of the war,² thus making it clear that the Rājagambhīra Rājyam was no other than the kingdom of the Śambuvarāyans. It looks very probable that it was Sakalaloka Chakravartin Veṇru Maṅgoṇḍa Śambuvarāyan, whose date of accession is Śaka 1245 (A.D. 1322–23) that was overthrown by Kampana sometime about A.D. 1347, which is the first date of his successor Sakalaloka Chakravartin Rāja Nārāyaṇa Śambuvarāyan. This achievement of Kumāra Kampana must have followed close upon the disappearance of the last Hoysala Ballāḷa IV, either by natural death or otherwise, as his last date is A.D. 1346. It is in this campaign that he is taken further as far as Madura, where he overthrew in actual battle, and killed, the Sultan of Madura. Among the attributes given to this Sultan by the poetess is one, which seems to mean much more than meets the eye. He is described to be ‘one who reduced to a low condition the Chola and Pāṇḍya by his valour, who proved the hatchet to the creeper, the prosperity of the Ballāḷa.’³ This gives a clear indication that the activities of this Sultan of Madura was destructive to the prosperity of the Hoysalas.

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This reference may be held directly to indicate that the particular Sultan who was responsible for the death of the Hoysala, was Sultan Nasiru-d-din who succeeded his uncle Ghiyathu-d-din in A.D. 1343. There is only one date on his coins, as was pointed out already, and that is A.H. 745; and an interregnum of twelve years followed immediately after this date. It is this state of things that we seem to find an echo of in the Tarik-i Firoz Shahi of Shams-i Siraj ‘Afif. ‘While the Sultan was at Delhi, attending to the affairs of his kingdom, ambassadors arrived from Ma’bar to state a grievance to him. Kurbat Hasan Kangu was king in Ma’bar when Sultan Muhammad Shah died, and when Sultan Firuz succeeded, his edicts were sent into Ma’bar, but the people of that country rebelled, and, going to Daulatabad, they made Kurbat Kangu King of Ma’bar. When this Kurbat held his court, he appeared decked out hand and foot with female ornaments, and made himself notorious for his puerile actions. The men of Ma’bar saw this, and being greatly incensed against him, they rebelled. The neighbouring chief, named Bakan, at the head of a body of men and elephants, marched into Ma’bar and made Kurbat Hasan Kangu prisoner. He made himself master of all Ma’bar, which belonged to the Muhammadans;

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their women suffered violence and captivity in the hands of the Hindus and Bakan established himself as ruler of Ma’bar.’ As his army was all along engaged in war and wanted rest, the Sultan declined to interfere according to this author. When sometime after his army volunteered to go for the conquest of Ma’bar, the Sultan was persuaded to decline to interfere again on the advice of his general Khan-i-Jahan who objected to going to war against Musalmans. What is worth remarking in this extract is that notwithstanding the confusion in the name of Kurbat Hasan Kangu and Daulatabad, the whole transaction seems to refer to what took place in the region of the Coromandel and not in the Dekhan. The puerile action the Sultan is charged with has not been ascribed to the founder of the Bahmani Kingdom in any other account; and the whole matter has reference to what took place immediately after the death of Sultan Muhammad in A.D. 1351. By this time the five brothers who were the successors of the Hoysalas in their campaigns against the Muhammadans of Madura, had achieved all that is ascribed to the chief Bakan, who could be no other than the Bukka of Hindu historical records. So in the early fifties of the thirteenth century the Muhammadan power in South India suffered an eclipse from which it emerged, for a period of about twenty years, only to suffer extinction.

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When again that power was put an end to, the restoration of the country to the Hindus is signalized by the restoration of Śrīrangam to its ancient glory and greatness in A.D. 1370-71. This brings us to the end of the Muhammadan rule in the south; and the assumption of imperial titles by the Vijayangar ruler Harihara II comes in at a period when there was not the faintest chance of any recovery by the Muhammadans of their position in South India. It is the position of the Muhammadans in the South that explains what appears the inexplicable delay in the assumption of imperial titles by the first two rulers of Vijayanagar even when their possession of the South did become an accomplished fact.