The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.165.1

v3.c29.165.1

The accession of Vīra Ballāla marks a point in South Indian History, when India south of the Vindhyas assumes, as it were, a new political division and stands divided into four important kingdoms, two of which were situated in the Deccan and the other two in the Peninsula. Of these four kingdoms three had formed part of the Chālukya kingdom, the northernmost being the kingdom of the Yādavas, with their capital at Deogīr. The Yādavas and the Hoysalas contributed most to the dismemberment of the Chālukya empire, and when dismemberment came benefited most by occupying compact blocks of territory. The river Krishna may roughly be regarded as the frontier between the two, that being the frontier for which the wars of the previous centuries were waged, whatever were the dynasties actually ruling to the north and south of it. The Yādava kingdom occupied the whole of the western half of the Deccan, and its eastern frontier may be marked by a line drawn roughly from somewhere east of Bījāpur through Gulbarga, Yādgīr, Kalyāni, north-east to Mahūr proceeding further north-eastwards ; all the territory west of it belonged to the Yādavas of Deogīr. The territory on the eastern side extending to the lower course of the river Krishna belonged to the Kākatīyas, who as feudatories of the later Chālukyas had their territory in the Nizām’s dominions with a capital at Anamkonda, which later on they transferred to their own fortified citadel of Warangal.