History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c28.18

v1.c28.18

The Bahmanī Sulṭān Humāyūn Shāh died in 1461 and both *Firishta* and the *Burhān-i-Ma’āṣir* agree in stating that the king of Orissa invaded the Bahmanī empire and almost reached the gates of the capital Bidar. The details of the campaign are not given and perhaps this is the only instance in which the Indian Musalman historian was compelled to admit the defeat of a king of his own community. From the tone of *Firishta* it appears certain that the Bahmanī army, unable to cope with Kapilendra in the open field, had to take refuge within the strong walls of the citadel. In this connection the learned editor of the third volume of the Cambridge History of India, failing to recognise the fact that Orissa from Medinipur to Trichinopoly was under one rule, states that the Rajah of Southern Orissā was compelled to pay half a million of silver *Tangas* in order to secure his retreat from molestation.¹ Sir T. W. Haig apparently wrote unconscious of the existence of the South Arcot inscription and, therefore, his statements are not worthy of credit like those of Professor S. K. Ayyangar. The only established fact is, that Kapilendra, allied with the Kākatīya chief of Varaṅgal, advanced within a short distance of the capital. Most probably the Hindu army had to be purchased off. The statement of the payment of twenty lakhs of *Tangas* as ransom for Kapilendra’s army is untrustworthy. After Orissa in the reign of Kapilendra Deva the battle of Devārkoṇḍa, Kapilendra had succeeded in stopping Musalman raids into the Hindu kingdoms on the east of the Bahmanī empire. Immediately after the death of Humāyun Shāh Bahmanī, he had made himself conspicuous by delivering a well-chosen blow at the trunk of Musalman power in the Deccan by invading the metropolitan district of Bidar. In the Muṇṇur inscription it is stated that Kapileśvara ‘Kumāra-Mahāpātra’ was formerly the Parīksha (governor) of Koṇḍavīḍu, but at the time of the incision of the record he was the Parīksha of Koṇḍavīḍu, Koṇḍapalle, Aḍḍaṅki, Vinukoṇḍa, Paḍaīvīḍu, Valuḍilampaṭṭu-Usadabi, Tiruvarur, Tiruchchilapalle (Trichinipoly) and Chandragiri. Among these places the Muṇṇur inscriptions mention Koṇḍavīḍu and Vinukoṇḍa as Daṇḍapāṭas or seats of Oṛiyā governors. As both Penukoṇḍa and Chandragiri were in the occupation of Kapileśvara, it seems more probable that this Vinukoṇḍa is meant to be the southern Penukoṇḍa and not Vinukoṇḍa in the Telugu country. This would give us two distinct Viceroyalities for the country along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal : Koṇḍavīḍu to the south of the Kṛshṇā in the Kṛshṇā district, and Penukoṇḍa in the interior, to the south west of Koṇḍavīḍu in the Anantapur district of the Madras Presidency.