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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c27: Chapter XV. The Kingdom of the Deccan. 1347–1490

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c27

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English

Chapter XV. The Kingdom of the Deccan. 1347–1490

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THE revolt of the centurions and the establishment by ‘Alā-ud-dīn Bahman Shāh of the kingdom of the Deccan, not wholly recovered by Delhi for 340 years, have already been described in Chapter VI.

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This kingdom was not conterminous with the southern provinces of Muhammad Tughluq’s great empire, for the Hindus of the south had not failed to profit by the dissensions of their enemies. Kānhayya Nāik of eastern Telingāna, who claimed to represent the Kākatīya dynasty, had readily assisted the rebels against the king of Delhi, but was not prepared to acknowledge Bahman Shāh as his master. Vīra Ballāla III of Dvāravatīpura had established his independence when the Muslim officers in the Deccan rose in rebellion, and having thrown off the yoke of Delhi was in no mood to bow his neck to that of Gulbarga. He pushed his frontier northward to the Tungabhadra river, which remained the extreme southern limit of Bahman’s dominions, nor did his successors invariably succeed in retaining even this frontier, for the great kingdom of Vijayanagar, which rose on the ruins of Dvāravatīpura, claimed the Doāb between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, with its two strong fortresses, Rāichūr and Mudgal, and this tract remained a debatable land while Bahman’s dynasty endured.

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Ibn Batūtah, in his account of his voyage down the western coast of India, mentions petty rulers of ports and their adjacent districts owning allegiance and paying tribute to Muhammad Tughluq, but this allegiance was withheld from Bahman Shāh, and only gradually recovered by his successors, whose authority over the Hindus of the Western Ghāts was always precarious.

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The new kingdom included the province of Berar, which marched on the north-west and north with the small state of Khāndesh and the kingdom of Mālwa, and it was separated from Gujarāt by the small hilly state of Baglāna (Bāglān), which retained a degree of independence under a dynasty of native Rājput chieftains.

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‘Alā-ud-dīn Hasan claimed descent from the hero Bahman, son of Isfandiyār, and his assumption of the title Bahman Shāh was an assertion of his claim¹. Firishta relates an absurd legend connecting the title with the name of the priestly caste of the Hindus, but this story is disproved by the evidence of inscriptions and legends on coins, and the name Kankū, which frequently occurs in conjunction with that of Bahman, and is said by Firishta to represent Gangū, the name of the king’s former Brāhman master, is more credibly explained by Maulavī ‘Abd-ul-Walī¹ as a scribe’s corruption of Kaikāūs, which was the name of Bahman’s father as given in two extant genealogies².

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¹ *J.A.S.B.*, Part I, vol. LXXIII, extra number, 1904.

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¹ *Journal and Proceedings, A.S.B.*, vol. v, p. 463.

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² Preserved by Firishta and the author of the *Burhān-i-Ma‘āsir*.

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The lesser Hindu chieftains of the Deccan, who had been bound only by the loosest of feudal ties to their overlord in distant Delhi, had followed the example of Dvāravatīpura and Warangal, and Bahman was engaged during his reign of eleven years in establishing his authority in the kingdom which he had carved out of Muhammad’s empire. He first captured the forts of Bhokardhan and Māhūr from the Hindu chieftains who held them, and then dispatched his officers into various districts of the Deccan to reduce the unruly to obedience. ‘Imād-ul-Mulk and Mubārak Khān advanced to the Tāpti and secured the northern provinces, and Husain Gurshāsp received the submission of the remnants of Muhammad’s army which had been left to continue the siege of Daulatābād, and which submitted readily on learning that Bahman Shāh was prepared to pardon their activity in the cause of the master to whom they had owed allegiance. Qutb-ul-Mulk captured the towns of Bhūm, Akalkot, and Mundargi, and pacified, in accordance with the principle approved by his master, the districts dependent on them. Landholders who submitted and undertook to pay the taxes assessed on their estates were accepted as loyal subjects, without too rigorous a scrutiny of their past conduct, but the contumacious were put to death, and their lands and goods were confiscated. Qambar Khān reduced, after a siege of fifty days, the strong fortress of Kaliyāni, and Sikandar Khān, who was sent into the Bīdar district, marched as far south as Mālkhed, receiving the submission of the inhabitants of the country through which he passed, and compelled Kānhayya Nāik of Warangal to cede the fortress of Kaulās and to pay tribute for the territory which he was permitted to retain.

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Bahman had rewarded Ismā‘īl Mukh, who had resigned to him the throne, with the title of Amīr-ul-Umarā, the nominal command of the army, and the first place at court, but afterwards transferred this last honour to Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī, father-in-law of Prince Muhammad, the heir-apparent, and the old Afghān, bitterly resenting his supersession, conspired to assassinate the king, and paid the penalty of his crime, but Bahman was so sensible of his indebtedness to him that he appointed his eldest son, Bahādur Khān, to the post rendered vacant by his father’s death.

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Bahman was as yet far from being secure in his new kingdom and a pretence of loyalty to Delhi furnished Nārāyan, a Hindu who possessed the tract between the Krishna and Ghātprabhā rivers, and Mu‘īn-ud-dīn, a Muslim who held a fief in the same neighbourhood, with a pretext for withholding tribute from a king who had renounced his allegiance to his former lord. Khvāja Jahān from Mīraj and Qutb-ul-Mulk from Mundargi besieged the rebels in Gulbarga, their chief stronghold, which was captured and occupied by the former, whose politic leniency immediately conciliated the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Khvāja Jahān, while he was at Gulbarga, received news of the mutiny of an army which had been sent to besiege Kanbari, one of Nārāyan’s fortresses near Bījāpur. The troops, suspecting their leader of trafficking with the enemy, rose and slew him, and then, intoxicated by success, and by possession of the treasure-chest, marched to Sāgar, expelled the officers employed in that district and occupied the fortress. The news of the death of Muhammad Tughluq in Sind deprived the mutineers of a pretext for rebellion, and Bahman, who marched to Sāgar in person, received their submission. He then captured Kalabgūr, Kanbari, and Mudhol, pardoned Nārāyan, who surrendered to him, and marched to Mīraj, which he had formerly held as a fief from his old master, Muhammad Tughluq. Here he halted for some time, and after establishing his authority in the neighbourhood returned to Gulbarga, which he made his capital, renaming it Ahsanābād. His leisure here was interrupted only by a rebellion of two Muslim officers at Kohīr and Kaliyāni.

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After the suppression of this revolt he devoted himself to the adornment of his capital with suitable buildings and to the establishment of a system of provincial government in his kingdom, which he divided into four provinces, each of which was known as a *taraf*. The first, Gulbarga, extended on the west to the Ghāts, and later to the sea, on the north to the eighteenth parallel of latitude, on the south to the Tungabhadra, and on the east to the Banāthorā and a line drawn from its confluence with the Bhīma to the confluence of the Krishna and the Tungabhadra. To the north of Gulbarga lay the province of Daulatābād, bounded on the north and north-east by the petty state of Baglāna, Khāndesh, and the southern Pūrna river; and north-east of this lay Berar, which, east of Burhānpur, was bounded on the north by the Tāpti and on the east by the Wardha and Pranhitā rivers, and extended on the south to the southern Pūrna and Godāvarī rivers, and on the west approximately to its present limits. The fourth province was Bīdar, or Muhammadan Telingāna, which included the towns and districts of Bīdar, Kandhār, Indūr, Kaulās, Kotāgīr, Medak, and as much of Telingāna as was comprised in the Bahmanī kingdom, extending eastward, at the end of Bahman’s reign, as far as Bhongīr; but the eastern border of this province, like the southern border of Gulbarga, where the Hindus of Vijayanagar often occupied the Rāichūr Doāb, varied with the power of the Muslim kings to resist the encroachments or overcome the defence of the Hindus of Telingāna. The governors first appointed to these provinces were Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī to Gulbarga; the king’s nephew Muhammad, entitled Bahrām Khān, to Daulatābād; Safdar Khān Sīstānī, to Berar; and Saif-ud-dīn’s son, who bore the title of A‘zam-i-Humāyūn, to Bīdar. Muhammad, the king’s eldest son, received his father’s former title of Zafar Khān, and the districts of Hūkeri, Belgaum, and Mīraj, which Bahman had formerly held of Muhammad Tughluq.

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Rebellion never again raised its head during Bahman’s reign, and having thus provided for the administration of his kingdom he was at leisure to extend its frontiers. He marched first into the Konkan, where, having captured the port of Goa, he marched northward along the coast, and took Dābhol, returning to his capital by way of Karhād and Kolhāpur, both of which towns he took from their Hindu rulers. After a period of repose at Gulbarga he led an expedition into Telingāna, captured Bhongīr, and remained in its neighbourhood for nearly a year, during which time he completely subjugated the country between it and Kohīr.

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During one of his periods of repose the king, intoxicated with success in war and pride of race, indulged in extravagant dreams of conquest, similar to those which had once deluded ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī and Muhammad Tughluq, and imitated the former by assuming, in the legends on his coins the vain-glorious title of ‘the Second Alexander.’ He proposed to inaugurate his career of conquest by attacking the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, which had suddenly risen to power, and carrying his arms to Cape Comorin, but, like his prototype, was recalled to sanity by the sober counsels of a faithful servant, the shrewd Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī, who reminded him that there was work nearer home, and that there still remained in the northern Carnatic Hindu chieftains who had not acknowledged his sovereignty. Against these he dispatched an expedition, the success of which may be measured by its booty, which included 200,000 golden *ashrafīs* of ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī, large quantities of jewels, 200 elephants, and 1000 singing and dancing girls, *murlīs* from Hindu temples.

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Bahman next turned his eyes towards the southern provinces of the kingdom of Delhi, lying on the northern frontier of his kingdom, and set out for Mālwa with an army of 50,000 horse, but before he had traversed the hilly country of southern Berar was persuaded by Raja Haran the Vāghelā, son of that Raja Karan of Gujarāt who had been expelled from his kingdom in the reign of ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī and had found an asylum with the Rāhtor raja of Baglāna, to attempt first the invasion of Gujarāt, which the raja promised, if restored, to hold as a fief of the kingdom of the Deccan. Bahman marched into that kingdom, but at Nāvsārī fell sick of fever and dysentery, brought on by his exertions in the chase and by excessive indulgence in wine and venison, and was compelled to abandon his enterprise. As soon as he had recovered sufficiently to travel he returned to Gulbarga, where he lay sick for six months and died on February 11, 1358¹. He left four sons, Muhammad, Dāūd, Ahmad, and Mahmūd², the eldest of whom succeeded him.

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¹ ^1 Rabī‘ul-awwal 1, a.h. 759. This is the date given by Firishta. According to the *Tazkirat-ul-Mulūk* Bahman died in a.h. 761 (a.d. 1360). A coin of his, dated a.h. 760, exists, but is perhaps posthumous, although no coin of Muhammad I of an earlier date than a.h. 760 has been discovered. *J.A.S.B.*, new series, xiv, 475.

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² ^2 *J.A.S.B.*, vol. lxxiii, extra number, 1904, pp. 4–6.

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Immediately after the accession of Muhammad I his mother performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and either visited or communicated with al-Mu‘tadid, the puppet Caliph in Egypt, from whom, on her return to India in 1361, she brought a patent recognising her son as king of the Deccan, in consequence of which he assumed on his coins the title ‘Protector of the People of the Prophet of the Merciful God.’ His father before him seems to have sought and obtained this coveted recognition, for in 1356 the Caliph’s envoy to Fīrūz Tughluq of Delhi had desired him to recognise and respect the Muslim king of the Deccan.

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Muhammad I was a diligent and methodical administrator, and on ascending the throne carefully organised his ministry, his household troops, and the provincial administration which his father had inaugurated. His institutions demand more than passing notice, for they not only endured as long as the kingdom of his successors but were closely imitated in the smaller states which rose on its ruins. The ministers were eight in number:

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(1) Vakīl-us-Saltanah, the Lieutenant of the Kingdom;
(2) Vazīr-i-Kull, the Superintending Minister;
(3) Amīr-i-Jumlah, the Minister of Finance;
(4) Vazīr-i-Ashrāf, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Master of the Ceremonies;
(5) Nāzir, the Assistant Minister of Finance;
(6) Pīshvā, who was associated with the Lieutenant of the Kingdom, and whose office was in later times almost invariably amalgamated with his;
(7) Kotwāl, the Chief of Police and City Magistrate in the capital; and
(8) Sadr-i-Jahān, the Chief Justice and Minister of Religion and Endowments.

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The guards were commanded by officers known as *Tavājī*, many of whom acted as aides-de-camp to the king and gentlemen ushers at court, in which capacity they were styled *Bārdār*. The whole bodyguard, known as *Khāss-Khail*, consisted of 200 esquires to the king (*Aslihadār*) and 4000 gentlemen troopers (*Yaka-Javān*), and was divided into four reliefs (*Naubat*), each consisting of 50 esquires and 1000 troopers, and commanded by one of the great nobles at the capital, with the title of *Sar-Naubat*. The tour of duty of each relief was four days, and the whole force was commanded by one of the ministers, entitled, as commander of the guards, *Sarkhail*, who performed his ordinary military duties by deputy.

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The Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar has already been mentioned. The founder of the dynasty which ruled it from 1339 to 1483 was Sangama I, a petty chieftain of Anagundi, on the north bank of the Tungabhadra and near the site of Vijayanagar. Sangama had never submitted to Muhammad Tughluq, but had maintained a rude independence in his stronghold, and was at first probably little more than a brigand chief; but the subjection of the Kākatīyas of Warangal, the destruction of the kingdom of Dvāravatīpura by the Sayyid sultan of Madura, and the rebellion in the Deccan, which left the Peninsula free from Muslim aggression, were the opportunity of Sangama and his successors, and there are few examples in history of a large and powerful state being established by adventurers in the short time which sufficed for the establishment of the kingdom of Vijayanagar. Unfortunately we lack the means of tracing the process by which the insignificant chieftains of Anagundī became, within the short space of thirty years, the unquestioned rulers of this great and wealthy kingdom, but we may form some idea of the course of events by imagining a great Hindu population exasperated by the sacrilegious oppression of foreign warriors with whom they had been powerless to cope, deprived of their hereditary rulers, and suddenly relieved of the hostile yoke by the intestine feuds of their enemies, joyfully acclaiming a national hero.

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Sangama I was succeeded, in 1339, by his son, Harihara I, who again was succeeded, in 1354, by his brother, Bukka I. It cannot be determined what share each of these rulers had in establishing the kingdom, but before 1357 it was so powerful that the sagest counsellor of Bahman Shāh dissuaded him from molesting it. Muhammad I came into conflict with this great power in consequence of a measure of domestic policy, adopted in no spirit of aggression. His father had minted few or no gold coins, but Muhammad, who objected both on religious and political grounds to the circulation of Hindu money in his dominions, coined gold in considerable quantities. Bukka I and Kānhayya of Warangal, without any justification, resented this measure as tending to limit the circulation of their gold, and received support from the bankers and moneychangers in Muhammad’s dominions, native Hindus of the Deccan, who melted down all his gold coin falling into their hands, and either hoarded the metal, which was purer than that of the Hindu coins, or supplied it to the mints of Vijayanagar and Warangal. Repeated warnings were disregarded, and on one day in May or June, 1360, the Hindu bankers and money-changers in all towns of the kingdom were, by royal decree, put to death. Their place was taken by Hindus of the Khatrī caste of northern India, who had accompanied the various armies which had invaded the Deccan, and now enjoyed a monopoly of the business of banking and money-changing until, in the reign of Fīrūz Shāh Bahmanī (1397–1422), the descendants of the slaughtered men were permitted, on payment of a large sum of money, to resume the business of their forefathers.

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The rajas of Vijayanagar and Warangal feigned to regard Muhammad’s determination to establish his own gold currency as an assertion of suzerainty, and, knowing that his treasury had been depleted by the profusion customary at the beginning of a new reign, addressed arrogant and provocative messages to him. Bukka demanded the cession of the Rāichūr Doāb, and threatened, failing compliance, to concert measures with the king of Delhi for a combined attack on the Deccan. Kānhayya of Warangal demanded the retrocession of Kaulās, and threatened war. Muhammad, on one pretext and another, detained the bearers of these insolent demands for eighteen months, by which time his preparations were complete, and, with an effrontery surpassing that of his enemies, haughtily inquired why his vassals, the rajas of Vijayanagar and Warangal, had not made the customary offerings on his accession, and demanded that they should atone for their negligence by immediately sending to him all the elephants fit for work in their dominions, laden with gold, jewels, and precious stuffs. Kānhayya's reply to this insult was the dispatch of an army under his son Venāyek Deva against Kaulās, and Bukka supplied a contingent of 20,000 horse for the enterprise. The armies of Berar and Bīdar under Bahādur Khān defeated and dispersed the invaders, and while Bukka's contingent fled southwards Venāyek Deva took refuge in his fief of Vailampallam, on the sea coast. Bahādur Khān marched to the gates of Warangal, forced Kānhayya to ransom his capital by the payment of 100,000 gold *hūns*¹ and the surrender of twenty-six elephants, and returned to Gulbarga.

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¹ The *hūn* was the coin formerly known by the British in southern India as the pagoda, and was worth four rupees.

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These hostilities permanently disturbed the friendly relations between Warangal and Gulbarga. In 1362 a caravan of horse-dealers arrived at Gulbarga, and to the king's complaint that they had no horse in their stock fit for his stable, replied that on their way through Vailampallam Venāyek Deva had compelled them to sell to him all their best horses, despite their protest that they were reserved for the king of the Deccan. Muhammad set out in person to avenge this insult, and led 4000 horse on a sudden raid to Vailampallam, performing a month's journey in a week, and arriving at his destination with only a quarter of his original force; but his arrival was unexpected, and, having gained admission to the town by a stratagem, he captured Venāyek Deva as he attempted to flee from the citadel. Exasperated by the foul abuse which his captive uttered, he caused his tongue to be torn out, and hurled him from a *balista* set up on the ramparts into a fire kindled below.

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He was gradually joined by the complement of his original force, but imprudently lingered too long at Vailampallam, and in the course of his long retreat was so harassed by the Hindus that he was forced to abandon all his baggage and camp equipage, and lost nearly two-thirds of his men. Reinforcements which joined him at Kaulās not only checked the pursuit, but carried the war into the enemy's country, and devastated the western districts of Telingāna.

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During the king's absence his cousin, Bahrām Khān Māzandarānī, governor of Daulatābād, had rebelled, and had sought the assistance of Fīrūz Tughluq of Delhi¹. His mission, which was accompanied by envoys from Kānhayya of Warangal, failed to accomplish its object, and Muhammad sent an army to suppress the rebellion in Daulatābād and marched in person into Telingāna to avenge his recent discomfiture. One force was sent against Golconda and another against Warangal, whence Kānhayya fled into the hills and jungles and vainly sued for peace. Muhammad remained for two years in Telingāna, ravaging and laying waste the country, while his troops continued to besiege Warangal and Golconda. Kānhayya at length succeeded in obtaining peace by swearing fealty, paying an indemnity of 1,300,000 *hūns*, surrendering 300 elephants, and ceding Golconda. To these concessions he added a throne studded with turquoises, which had originally been prepared as an offering to Muhammad Tughluq, but was now included in the regalia of the kingdom of the Deccan, where it was known as the *Takht-i-Fīrūza*, or turquoise throne.

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¹ See Chapter VII.

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On March 21, 1365, Muhammad took his seat on this throne at Gulbarga and made himself merry with wine, dance, and song. The singers and dancers had to be suitably rewarded, and the king, flushed with wine and success, ordered that they should be paid by a draft on the treasury of Vijayanagar. His ministers hesitated to execute an order issued, as they were persuaded, under the influence of strong drink, but the king was in earnest, and insisted on obedience. The order, delivered to Bukka by an accredited envoy, incensed the powerful raja beyond measure, its bearer was ridden round the city on an ass and ignominiously expelled, and Bukka crossed the Tungabhadra and besieged Mudgal, a fortress then held by no more than 800 Muslim troops. The place fell, and its garrison was massacred before relief could reach it, and Muhammad set out for the Doāb with no more than thirty elephants, crossed the flooded Krishna, and marched towards Bukka's great army of 30,000 horse and 900,000 foot², vowing that he would not sheathe the sword until he had avenged the massacre of the garrison of Mudgal by the slaughter of a hundred thousand misbelievers.

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² The vast numbers of infantry led into the field by the rajas of Vijayanagar will frequently be noticed. They suggest a suspicion of deliberate exaggeration by Muslim historians for the purpose of magnifying the exploits of Muslim warriors, but the suspicion is unjust. 'Abd-ur-Razzāq, an unprejudiced observer, who visited Vijayanagar in 1442, when the kingdom was at peace, says that the army consisted of 1,100,000 men.

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His impetuosity terrified Bukka, who fled with his cavalry towards Adonī, leaving the infantry, followers, and baggage animals to follow as best they could. The Muslims plundered the Hindu camp, taking a vast quantity of booty, and Muhammad, after slaughtering 70,000 Hindus of both sexes and all ages, retired for the rest of the rainy season into the fortress of Mudgal where he was joined by reinforcements from Daulatābād. He sent orders to all the forts in his kingdom, demanding a detachment of artillery from each, and sent the elephants which he had captured to Gulbarga, for the conveyance of the guns¹. At the close of the rainy season he advanced towards Adonī, while Bukka retired, leaving his sister's son in command of that fortress.

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¹ With reference to this statement, and the mention of guns as part of Bukka's armament, Firishta remarks that this was the first occasion on which the Muslims used guns in warfare in the Deccan. It is quite possible that a knowledge of the use of gunpowder in war had by this time reached southern India, for Ismā‘il b. Faraj, king of Granada, used artillery at the siege of Baza, in 1325, and cannon of brass, with iron balls, were made at Florence in 1326. Who the Europeans and Ottoman Turks, mentioned by Firishta as serving with the artillery, can have been, is not clear, for the Portuguese did not reach India until more than 130 years after this time. It is not, however, improbable that Europeans from the Eastern Empire and Venice occasionally found their way to India by way of Egypt and the Red Sea, or overland, either as independent adventurers or as the slaves of Muhammadan merchants. Both Europeans and Ottoman Turks were in great request at a later period, as gunners and artillerists.

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Bukka reassembled his scattered army, and Muhammad, crossing the Tungabhadra at Siruguppa, advanced to meet him. Bukka detached an officer, Mallināth, with the flower of his army, consisting of 40,000 horse and 500,000 foot, to attack the Muslims, and Muhammad sent against him his cousin, Khān Muhammad, with 10,000 horse, 30,000 foot, and all the artillery, and followed him with the remainder of his army. Early in 1367 the forces met near Kauthal, and the first great battle between the Hindus of the Carnatic and the Muslims of the Deccan was fought. It raged with great fury from dawn until four o'clock in the afternoon, the commanders of the wings of the Muslim army were slain and their troops put to flight but the centre stood fast, encouraged by the news of the near approach of the king, and, by a timely discharge of the artillery, worked by European and Ottoman Turkish gunners, shook the Hindu ranks, and completed their discomfiture by a cavalry charge which prevented their artillery from coming into

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The Hindu infantry was of very poor fighting quality and probably consisted of a host of lightly armed and half-trained rustics, of whom almost any number might have been collected.

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action, and in which Mallināth was mortally wounded. His army broke and fled, and Muhammad Shāh arrived on the field in time to direct the pursuit, in the course of which the victors slaughtered every living soul whom they overtook, sparing neither women nor sucklings. Muhammad marched in pursuit of Bukka, who, after eluding him for three months, contrived to throw himself into Vijayanagar, which the Muslims were not strong enough to besiege, but Muhammad, by feigning sickness and ordering a retreat, enticed him from the fortress, and, having led the Hindus to a distance, attacked their camp by night, slew 10,000 men, and again captured their treasure and elephants. Bukka again fled to Vijayanagar and Muhammad, without attempting to besiege him, ordered a general massacre of the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Bukka, urged by his courtiers, sent envoys to sue for peace, and even the Muslim officers were moved to beg that the slaughter might cease, but Muhammad replied that although he had slain four times the number of Hindus which he had sworn to slay, he would not desist until his draft on Bukka's treasury was honoured. To this the envoys consented, the draft was honoured, and the war ended. The Hindus, horrified by the massacre of 400,000 of their race, including 10,000 of the priestly caste, proposed that both parties should agree to spare non-combatants in future. Muhammad consented, and the agreement, though sometimes violated, mitigated to some extent the horrors of the long period of intermittent warfare between the two states.

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Bahrām Khān and his confederate, Kondba Deva the Marāthā, were now stronger than ever in Daulatābād. The failure of their missions to Delhi had been more than counterbalanced by the withdrawal of the royal troops for the campaign in the south, and Bahrām was enriched by the accumulation of several years' revenue of the province and strengthened by the support of a numerous and well-equipped army, by an alliance with the raja of Baglāna, and by the adhesion of many of the fief-holders of southern Berar. To a letter from Muhammad promising him forgiveness if he would return to his allegiance he vouchsafed no reply, and Khān Muhammad was reappointed to Daulatābād and sent against him, the king following with the remainder of the army.

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Bahrām and his allies advanced as far as Paithan on the Godāvarī, and Khān Muhammad halted at Shivgāon, only thirteen miles distant, and begged his master, who was hunting in the neighbourhood of Bīr, to come to his assistance. On the news of the king's approach the rebels dispersed and fled, evacuating even the fortress of Daulatābād, and were pursued to the frontiers of Gujarāt, in which province they took refuge.

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After some stay at Daulatābād Muhammad I returned to Gulbarga, and devoted himself to the domestic affairs of his kingdom, which enjoyed peace for the remainder of his reign. Highway robbery had for some time been rife, and he exerted himself to suppress it, with such success that within six or seven months the heads of 20,000 brigands were sent to the capital.

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The provincial governors enjoyed great power. They collected the revenue, raised and commanded the army, and made all appointments, both civil and military, in their provinces. Under a strong king, and as long as the practice, now inaugurated by Muhammad, of annual royal progresses through the provinces was continued, this system of decentralisation worked tolerably well, but as the limits of the kingdom were extended and the personal authority of the monarch waned its defects became apparent, and an attempt to modify it in the reign of Muhammad III led indirectly to the dismemberment of the state.

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It was in 1367 that Muhammad I completed the great mosque of Gulbarga, which differs from other mosques in India in having the space which is usually left as an open courtyard roofed in. The late Colonel Meadows Taylor was mistaken in the idea that it was an imitation of the great mosque, now the cathedral, of Cordova, for it differs from it in the style of its architecture, but it is a noble building, impressive in its massive solidity.

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In the spring or early summer of 1377 Muhammad I died, and was succeeded by his elder son, Mujāhid, remarkable for his personal beauty, his great physical strength, and his headstrong disposition. One of his earliest acts as king was to demand from Bukka I the cession of the extensive tract bounded on the north by the Ghātprabhā and on the south by the Tungabhadra, and stretching eastward nearly as far as Mudgal and westward to the sea. Bukka replied by demanding the return of the elephants captured in the previous reign, and Mujāhid at once invaded his dominions. Sending a force under Safdar Khān Sīstānī to besiege Adonī, he marched in person against Bukka, who was encamped on the bank of the Tungabhadra, near Gangāwatī, and retreated southward on his approach. For five or six months Mujāhid followed him through the jungles of the Carnatic, without succeeding in forcing a battle, and in the end Bukka eluded him and shut himself up in Vijayanagar. Mujāhid followed him, penetrated beyond the outer defences of the city, and defeated successive forces of Hindus sent against him. The failure of his uncle, Dāūd Khān, to hold a defile, the defence of which had been entrusted to him, imperilled his retreat, but he forced his way through the defile and retired at his leisure towards Adonī with sixty or seventy thousand captives, whose lives were spared under the pact into which his father had entered. Bukka feared to follow, and Mujāhid besieged Adonī for nine months, and was on the point of receiving its surrender when the rainy season began, replenished the water supply of the garrison, and caused much distress in the besiegers’ camp. Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī persuaded him to raise the siege, peace was made with Bukka, and Mujāhid set out for his capital.

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His uncle, Dāūd Khān¹, had taken grave offence at the rebuke which he had received for his desertion of his post at the battle of Vijayanagar, and entered into a conspiracy to destroy him. An opportunity occurred when Dāūd Khān’s turn to mount guard over the royal tent came, and on the night of April 15, 1378, the conspirators entered Mujāhid’s sleeping tent and slew him, and Dāūd was proclaimed king.

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¹ For a discussion of the question of the relationship between Mujāhid and Dāūd see *J.A.S.B.*, vol. LXXIII, part I, extra number, 1904, p. 5.

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Safdar Khān, governor of Berar, and A‘zam-i-Humāyūn, the new governor of Daulatābād, both partisans of Mujāhid, had preceded the army to the capital, and on learning of the success of the conspirators took possession of the royal elephants and returned to their provinces without waiting to tender their allegiance to the new king. Their defection menaced Dāūd’s authority, but there was also a party in the capital which was prepared to oppose his enthronement, and the Hindus, on hearing of the death of Mujāhid, crossed the Tungabhadra and laid siege to Rāichūr. The aged regent, Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī, averted the calamity of a rebellion at Gulbarga, but refused to serve the usurper, and retired into private life, and on May 20, 1378, Dāūd, at the instigation of Mujāhid’s sister, Rūh Parvar Āghā, was assassinated at the public prayers in the great mosque. Khān Muhammad, Dāūd’s principal supporter, slew the assassin and attempted to secure the throne for Dāūd’s infant son, Muhammad Sanjar, but the child’s person was in the possession of Rūh Parvar, who caused him to be blinded, and, with the concurrence of the populace raised to the throne Muhammad², son of Mahmūd Khān, the youngest son of Bahman Shāh.

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² Firishta wrongly styles this prince Mahmūd. He is refuted by the evidence of coins, inscriptions, and other historians, excepting those who are admittedly mere copyists, but has led all English historians astray. See *J.A.S.B.*, vol. LXXIII, part I, extra number, 1904, pp. 6, 7.

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Muhammad II imprisoned Khān Muhammad in the fortress of Sāgar, where he shortly afterwards died, and punished his accomplices. The provincial governors who had refused to recognise the usurper returned to their allegiance to the throne, Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī again became chief minister of state, and Bukka, on learning of the unanimity with which the young king was acclaimed, prudently raised the siege of Rāichūr and retired across the Tungabhadra.

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Muhammad II was a man of peace, devoted to literature and poetry, and his reign was undisturbed by foreign wars. His love of learning was encouraged by the Sadr-i-Jahān, Mīr Fazlullāh Injū of Shīrāz, at whose instance the great poet Hāfiz was invited to his court. Hāfiz accepted the invitation and set out from Shīrāz, but he possessed that horror of the sea which is inherent in Persians, and he was so terrified by a storm in the Persian Gulf that he disembarked and returned to Shīrāz, sending his excuses to Mīr Fazlullāh in the well-known ode¹ beginning:

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¹ No. 142 in Lt.-Colonel H. S. Jarrett’s edition of Hāfiz.

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دمی باغم به سر بردن جهان یکسر نمی ارزد *
به می بفروش دلق ما كه بیش از این نمی ارزد

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and the king was so gratified by the poet’s attempt to make the journey that although the plentiful provision which he had sent for him had been dissipated, he sent him valuable gifts.

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Between 1387 and 1395 the Deccan was visited by a severe famine, and Muhammad’s measures for the relief of his subjects displayed a combination of administrative ability, enlightened compassion, and religious bigotry. A thousand bullocks belonging to the transport establishment maintained for the court were placed at the disposal of those in charge of relief measures, and travelled incessantly to and fro between his dominions and Gujarāt and Mālwa, which had escaped the visitation, bringing thence grain which was sold at low rates in the Deccan, but to Muslims only. The king established free schools for orphans at Gulbarga, Bīdar, Kandhār, Ellichpur, Daulatābād, Chaul, Dābhol, and other cities and towns, in which the children were not only taught, but were housed and fed at the public expense. Special allowances were also given to readers of the Koran, reciters of the Traditions, and the blind.

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The peace of Muhammad’s reign was disturbed in its last year by the rebellion of Bahā-ud-dīn, governor of Sāgar, who, at the instigation of his sons raised the standard of revolt. A Turkish officer named Yūsuf Azhdar was sent to quell the rebellion, and besieged Sāgar for two months, at the end of which time the garrison rose against their leader, decapitated him, and threw his head over the battlements as a peace offering. His sons were slain while making a last stand against the royal troops, and the rebellion was crushed.

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On April 20, 1397, Muhammad II died of a fever, and on the following day Saif-ud-dīn Ghūrī, the faithful old servant of his house, passed away at the great age of 104 (solar) years, and was buried beside his master.

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Muhammad was succeeded by his elder son, Ghiyās-ud-dīn, a resolute but indiscreet youth of seventeen. He angered Tughalchīn, the chief of the Turkish slaves, by refusing to appoint him governor of Gulbarga and lieutenant of the kingdom, and incautiously placed himself in his enemy's power, lured by his infatuation for his daughter. Tughalchīn blinded the young king and caused the leading nobles of the kingdom to be assassinated.

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The unfortunate Ghiyās-ud-dīn, who had reigned but one month and twenty-six days, was blinded and deposed on June 14, 1397, and on the same day Tughalchīn raised to the throne his younger half-brother, Shams-ud-dīn Dāūd, and assumed the regency. He secured his position by playing on the vanity, the fears, and perhaps on the warmer sentiments of the young king's mother, who had been a maid-servant of Ghiyās-ud-dīn's mother, but his dominance in the state and the degradation of the royal family were deeply resented by the king's cousins, the brothers Fīrūz and Ahmad, sons of Ahmad Khān¹, one of the younger sons of Bahman Shāh, who had been brought up by their cousin Muhammad II and had each been married to one of his daughters, full sisters of Ghiyās-ud-dīn. The brothers, now young men of twenty-seven and twenty-six, do not seem to have been actuated at first by selfish motives, but desired only to protect the dignity of the throne and to serve the dynasty. Tughalchīn so aroused their apprehensions by poisoning the mind of the queen-mother against them that they fled from Gulbarga to Sāgar, where they were befriended by the governor, and demanded that the king should dismiss Tughalchīn. On receiving the reply that he was unable to exercise his authority they marched with a small force on Gulbarga, where they expected support from the minister's enemies, but they were disappointed, and Fīrūz, in order to encourage the faint-hearted among his followers, assumed the royal title. Their troops were defeated by the royal army, led by Tughalchīn and the puppet king, and they fled to Sāgar. After a short time they professed penitence, and returned to Gulbarga, where they were received with outward tokens of forgiveness, but continued to concert plans for the overthrow of the slave in which it was now clear that his puppet must be involved.

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¹ See *J.A.S.B.*, vol. LXXIII, part I, extra number, 1904, and *An Arabic History of Gujarāt*, text, edited by Sir E. Denison Ross, I, 160.

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On November 15, 1397, Fīrūz and Ahmad contrived to enter the palace with a few armed adherents, on the pretext of paying their respects to the king, and overpowered both him and Tughalchīn. Fīrūz ascended the turquoise throne, and was proclaimed under the title of Tāj-ud-dīn Fīrūz Shāh, and Shams-ud-dīn was blinded and imprisoned, and eventually permitted to perform, with his mother, the pilgrimage to the Hijāz, where he died. The blind Ghiyās-ud-dīn was brought from Sāgar, a sword was placed in his hand and Tughalchīn, who was compelled to sit before him, was cut to pieces by his former victim.

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Fīrūz, at the time of his accession, was an amiable, generous, accomplished, and tolerant prince, possessed of a vigorous constitution and understanding, both of which he undermined by indulgence in the pleasures of the harem.

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His first task was to reorganise the administrative machinery of the kingdom, and he appointed his brother, Ahmad Khān, minister, with the titles of Amīr-ul-Umarā and Khānkhānān, and Mīr Fazlullāh Injū governor of Gulbarga and lieutenant of the kingdom, and Brāhmans were more extensively employed in important posts.

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In 1398 the long peace between the Deccan and Vijayanagar was broken, the aggressor being Harihara II, who invaded the Rāichūr Doāb with an army of 30,000 horse and 900,000 foot, while the Hindu chieftain on the north bank of the Krishna headed a rebellion of the Kolīs. Fīrūz first dealt with the latter, and after defeating them in the field put to death large numbers of them and crushed the rising, but was compelled to send back the armies of Berar and Daulatābād, which he had summoned to his assistance against Harihara, in order that they might deal with Narsingh, the Gond raja of Kherla, who had invaded Berar and ravaged the eastern districts of that province as far south as Māhūr, on the Penganga. No more than 12,000 horse remained to him, but he ventured to advance to the Krishna. The rainy season of 1399 had now set in, and Harihara's vast army held the southern bank of the river. The tactics and discipline of the Hindus were contemptible. They were scattered over an area which extended for some seventeen miles along the bank of the river and the same distance in depth to the south of it, and this dispersion, necessary for purposes of supply, was sufficient to destroy their cohesion, but their mere numbers precluded any attempt to force the passage of the river, and Fīrūz chafed at his enforced inaction until his health suffered. At this juncture Qāzī Sirāj-ud-dīn, an inferior officer of his court, whose enterprise and hardihood became rather his military than his judicial office, suggested a bold adventure, which Fīrūz at first forbade, but afterwards sanctioned¹.

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¹ For this extraordinary exploit, which reads more like romance than history, we have three distinct authorities, (1) Firishta, who cites the *Tuhfat-us-Salātīn* and *Sirāj-ut-Tawārīkh*, (2) Nizām-ud-dīn Ahmad, and (3) Khāfī Khān, who for once is not a mere echo of Firishta but obtained his facts from an independent source, and is corroborated in many important details by Nizām-ud-dīn Ahmad's briefer summary. Khāfī Khān's account has been followed as the fullest, most authentic, and most credible of the three. The exploit will appear incredible to those who do not understand the proneness of the Oriental to panic on the loss of a leader. The Qāzī understood the failing and laid his plans accordingly.

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The Qāzī, a man of parts, had in the course of a riotous youth, acquired considerable proficiency in music, dancing and juggling, and he proposed that he should cross the river with a small band of performers who would readily be admitted into the disorderly camp of the enemy, and might, by assassinating either Harihara or his son, throw it into confusion and thus give the Muslim army an opportunity of crossing in the darkness.

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Fīrūz Shāh's preparations for crossing the river attracted the attention and earned the ridicule of the Hindus, but were not connected by them with the appearance in their camp of a band of twenty-six wandering minstrels, who, having crossed the river lower down, had lodged in a liquor shop, and exhibited their skill before other professional entertainers whom they met there. The new-comers soon gained a high reputation, and some nights after their arrival were commanded to perform before Harihara's son. The Qāzī sent a secret message to Fīrūz, warning him to be prepared, and led his troupe to the prince's tents. Only the Qāzī and two others were required to dance, and the rest of the party remained outside, and were instructed to be ready to facilitate the escape of the performers. After the exhibition of some tricks Sirāj-ud-dīn called for arms for the performance of the sword and dagger dance, and the three gave an exhibition of sword and dagger play which amazed the half-inebriated Hindus. Then, suddenly rushing forward, Sirāj-ud-dīn fell upon and cut down the prince, while his two confederates disposed of the minister, the other spectators, and the torch-bearers. The three escaped in the darkness and joined their companions without, who, on the first symptoms of a disturbance, had attacked and slain the guard, so that the gang was enabled to escape to a place of safety and await the success of the enterprise. The camp of the Hindus was thrown into confusion, and the wildest rumours circulated. It was widely believed that the enemy had crossed in force, and slain the raja, and some of the Hindus mistook others, in the darkness, for enemies, and fell upon them. The slaughter was only stayed when a conflagration caused by the ignition of some tents discovered to the combatants their error; others, not knowing whither to turn, stood to arms by their tents, but none knew where to strike.

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During the tumult some three or four thousand horse crossed the river in relays under cover of the darkness, and the Hindu picquets on the river bank, attacked in front and alarmed by the uproar in their rear, turned and fled: those who had already crossed the river covered the passage of the remainder, and before daybreak Fīrūz and his whole force had gained the southern bank. At dawn they attacked the vast and scattered camp of the Hindus, which was still in confusion, and Harihara, who had left the conduct of affairs entirely in the hands of his son, was so overwhelmed with grief and dismay that he fled to Vijayanagar, carrying his son’s body with him, and leaving his army to follow as best it could. Fīrūz pursued the flying mob, annihilating any small bands which attempted to stem his progress, and at last halted before Vijayanagar. His numerical weakness precluded any idea of siege operations, or of attempting to carry the great city by storm, and part of the army was detached to plunder and lay waste the populous tract to the south of it. The agreement to spare the lives of non-combatants was respected, but large numbers, including 10,000 Brāhmans, were enslaved, and the leading Brāhmans of Vijayanagar insisted on the conclusion of peace on any terms obtainable, and on the ransom of the captives. These objects were attained by the payment of an indemnity of about £330,000 sterling, and Fīrūz retired. On his return to Gulbarga he made the first departure from the provincial system of Bahman Shāh and Muhammad I by appointing Fūlād Khān military governor of the Rāichūr Doāb, which had hitherto formed part of the province of Gulbarga, from which it was now separated.

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It was now necessary to formulate the foreign policy of the kingdom with respect to the territories on its northern frontier, Gujarāt and Mālwa, which had declared their independence of Delhi in 1396 and 1401, and the small state of Khāndesh, which had been established in 1382 by Malik Rāja, a partisan of Bahrām Khān Māzandarānī who had fled from the Deccan. The kingdom of the Bahmanids, freed from the menace of its southern neighbour, would have been stronger than any one of these states, stronger, perhaps, than all together, but as matters stood Mālwa was only slightly weaker than the Deccan and Gujarāt equal to it, or perhaps slightly stronger, while the small state of Khāndesh could not have stood alone under any conditions, and was formidable only by reason of the support which one or other of its powerful neighbours was ever ready to lend it.

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The aggression of Narsingh of Kherla had been prompted by Dilāvar Khān of Mālwa and Nasīr Khān of Khāndesh, and the governors of Berar and Daulatābād had not only been unable to punish him, but had not even succeeded in restoring order in Berar. Fīrūz was thus compelled, after two or three months’ rest at Gulbarga, again to take the field, and at the beginning of the winter of 1399 marched to Māhūr, where he received the submission of the governor, a Gond or Hindu who had declared for Narsingh. After halting there for a month he continued his march to Ellichpur, whence he dispatched a force under his brother Ahmad and Mīr Fazlullāh Injū to punish Narsingh. The Gonds, disappointed of the help which they had expected from Mālwa and Khāndesh, fought with such desperate valour that the centre of the Muslims was broken, and many of the leading officers, among them Shujā‘at Khān, Dilāvar Khān, and Bahādur Khān, were slain¹.

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¹ The shrine at Ellichpur known as that of Shāh ‘Abd-ur-Rahmān is probably the tomb of one or all of these officers. ‘Abd-ur-Rahmān is said to have been a nephew and son-in-law of Mahmūd of Ghaznī, and to have invaded Berar early in the eleventh century, during the reign of the eponymous raja Il of Ellichpur. The absurd story is unknown to history, and is merely a clumsy imitation of the legends of Sālār Mas‘ūd of Bahrāich, in Oudh. For the legend, and a discussion of it see *J.A.S.B.*, vol. LXX, part III, p. 10.

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Ahmad Khān and Fazlullāh Injū rallied the fugitives and saved the day by causing the great drums to be beaten and spreading the report that the king was hastening to the support of his army. They attacked the Gond centre, captured Kosal Rāi, Narsingh’s son, who commanded it, slew 10,000 Gonds, and pursued the remainder to the gates of Kherla, which were shut only just in time to exclude the victors. The fortress endured a siege of two months, at the end of which time Narsingh was informed, in reply to his prayers for peace, that the besiegers were not empowered to treat, and that he must make his submission to Fīrūz Shāh at Ellichpur.

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He was fain to comply, and after offering forty elephants, a considerable weight of gold and silver, and a daughter for the king's harem, and promising to pay tribute annually, 'as in the days of Bahman Shāh,' was invested with a robe of honour and dismissed. Mīr Fazlullāh Injū was appointed governor of Berar, and Fīrūz returned to Gulbarga.

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