The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.361

v3.c20.361

So successful was Ulugh Khān in persuading his father of his innocence or his penitence that in 1323 he was permitted to lead another expedition into Telingāna, and on this occasion he observed the precaution, which he had formerly neglected, of securing his lines of communication. His first objective was Bīdar, the ancient Vidarbha, and having captured that fortress he marched on Warangal and opened the siege with more vigour than on the first occasion. The efforts of his troops were supported by such artillery as that age possessed, catapults and *balistae*, and their valour, thus aided, reduced both the outer and the inner lines of defence. Pratāparudradeva and his family, the nobles of the kingdom with their wives and children, and the elephants, horses and treasure of the state, fell into the hands of the victors, and Telingāna, for the first time, was directly subjected to Muslim rule. The country was divided into fiefs and districts which were allotted to Muslim nobles and officers, and Warangal, now renamed Sultānpur, became the capital of a province of the empire. The news was received at Delhi with great rejoicings and Ulugh Khān remained for some time at Sultānpur-Warangal to establish the administration of the province. His restless activity led him into the ancient Hindu kingdom of Utkala in Orissa, called by Muslim historians Jājnagar, the ancestors of whose rulers had stemmed the advance of the earlier Muslim governors of Bengal. His expedition was a mere raid, undertaken with no design of permanent conquest, and its only immediate result was the capture of forty elephants, but the raja, who had lived for some time at peace with the quasi-independent rulers of Bengal, of the line of Balban, was disturbed by the discovery that the Turks were in a position to menace his southern as well as his northern frontier.