The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s16.132

c8.s16.132

Bijâpur itself. That Bhillama had held, as was only to be expected, the country south of the Malparbhâ and the Kṛishṇa, as well as the northern provinces, is shewn by an inscription of A. D. 1189, the third year of his reign, at Aṇṇigere, and by his Gadag inscription of June, A. D. 1191. Vîra-Ballâḷa must have been, nominally at least, then a feudatory of Bhillama. But his defeat of the Western Châlukya general Brahma must have taken before that date. And it was doubtless that success that put him in a position to measure his strength against that of Bhillama himself. The final decisive battle between the Hoysalas and the Yâdavas, which must be placed soon after June, A. D. 1191, is located in the neighbourhood of Gadag by the Aṇṇigere inscription of A. D. 1202, which, describing Vîra-Ballâḷa as "a submarine fire in the ocean, which was the army of Bhillama," tells us that, though Bhillama held himself to be unconquerable on account of his great array of elephants and horses and foot-soldiers, Vîra-Ballâḷa pursued him from Soraṭûr (twelve miles south of Gadag) to Lokkiguṇḍi (Lakkuṇḍi, six miles east of Gadag), and there destroyed his forces. The record seems also to state that Bhillama himself was killed on this occasion; and, as the Virôdhikrit saṁvatsara, A. D. 1191-92, was the first year of the reign of Jaitugi I. on the north of the boundary line, as well as of Vîra-Ballâḷa on the south of it, it appears not unlikely that such was really the case. A reference to the same battle is made in a Harihar inscription of A. D. 1224, of the time of Narasimha II.,¹ which claims that the army of the Sêuṇa king,² consisting of two hundred thousand men with twelve thousand cavalry, was pursued by Vîra-Ballâḷa from Soraṭûr to the banks of the Kṛishṇaveṇî, and was there destroyed. This latter record adds that, in the same campaign, when, after the pursuit, he had halted and reformed his forces, Vîra-Ballâḷa II. reduced all the forts between Soraṭûr, Erambarage (Yelburga, in the Nizâm's Dominions), Kuru-gôḍ (near Bellâry), Gutti (about fifty miles east of Bellâry), Bellittage (possibly ‘Belatti’ or ‘Belhuttee,’ near Lakshmêshwar, close to which is the hill-fort of Srîmantgad), Raṭṭapaḷḷi (Raṭṭêhaḷḷi, in the Kôḍ tâluka), and "the proud" Virâṭana-kôṭe (Hâṅgal). And an inspection of the map will shew that the possession of these strongholds made his power