History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c29.7

v1.c29.7

Sāḷuva Narasiṁha may have risen during the lifetime of Mallikārjuna (1449-67), but he found an opportunity to increase his territories northwards after the demise of Kapilendra in 1470. His ancestral territory lay around Nārāyaṇavanam in the Chittur district of Mysore State and he was hemmed in both on the north and the east by the empire of Orissa. During the Musalman invasion of Telingana, when Niẓām-ul-mulk Ḥasan Baḥrī captured Koṇḍapalle or Koṇḍavidu and Rājamahendri for Sulṭān Muḥammad III, Sāḷuva Narasiṁha conquered the whole of the eastern coastland as far as the mouth of the Godāvari. The Tirukoilur² inscription of 1470-71 proves that Sāḷuva Narasiṁha had either joined hands with the Musalmans of Bidar or invaded the territories of Orissa as soon as the Bahmanī army had interposed a formidable barrier between the capital of Orissa and her provinces in the extreme south. During his war with Orissa Sāḷuva Narasiṁha had under him Naresa Nāyaka, the founder of the Tuḷuva dynasty. Mallikārjuna was succeeded by Virupāksha, who ruled over Vijayanagara till he was deposed by Narasa in 1487. Virupāksha was the contemporary of Purushottama during the earlier years of his reign. South Indian scholars claim that details of the campaigns of Sāḷuva Narasimha are preserved in the Sāḷuv-ābhyudayam of Rājanātha Diṇḍima. In the fourth canto of this work it is stated that when Sāḷuva Narasimha marched against the king of Kaliṅga, the latter came out at the head of his army, but was defeated and retired to his own city. Later on he was besieged in that city and compelled to surrender. The Sāḷuv-ābhyudayam is a standard type-specimen illustrating the historical value of the work of a Court panegyrist. It proves the unreliability of praśastis not corroborated by independent extraneous evidence. From 1470 till about 1476 the Musalmans of Bidar were in possession of the Godāvarī delta and had interposed a wedge of territory between the Hindus of Orissa and Vijayanagara and it is therefore absolutely impossible to imagine how Sāḷuva Narasimha could have besieged and captured Kaṭak, the capital of the Sūrya-vamśīs. According to the Burhān-i-Ma'āṣir Sulṭān Muḥammad III Bahmanī found Sāḷuva Narasimha strongly posted on the Godāvarī when he came to conduct the campaign against Orissa personally. The evidence of the Sāḷuv-ābhyudayam must, therefore, be accepted with great caution.¹