The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.178

Language: English

v3.c29.178.1

When Dēvarāya II had been on the throne for about ten years a change of rulers took place in Orissa to the north of the territory of Warangal which exercised great influence upon the history of Vijayanagar during the next century. In 1435, the last year of the reign of Ahmad I, Bahmanī, the enterprising and ambitious Kapilēśvaradeva ascended the throne of Orissa. By that time the territory of Warangal had been annexed by the Bahmanī kingdom, but the Telingana coast was as yet unconquered, and was open to the enterprise of the rising power of Orissa. The Bahmanī kingdom had been involved in wars with the Sultan of Khāndesh, the Marātha chieftains on the western and south-western frontier, and the Gond chieftain, Raja Narsingh of Kherla. Kapilēśvara took advantage of these difficulties to extend his territory gradually along the coast to the Godāvarī, and extended his raids as far south as Nellore and Udayagiri. A new danger thus threatened Vijayanagar. In the years immediately preceding 1440 Vijayanagar took the offensive and attacked the Bahmanī kingdom, but was worsted.

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An investigation of the causes of the defeat led to the conclusion that the superiority of the Muhammadan forces lay in their Turkish force of mounted archers, and Dēvarāya took steps immediately to remove the defect by enlisting a special force of 2000 Muhammadan archers, cantoning them in a special quarter of the city where they had a mosque and a separate slaughter-house, and respecting their sentiment so far as to place a copy of the Koran in front of his throne, so that the obeisance made before the monarch was offered to the Koran. This force was not the first Muhammadan contingent in the Vijayanagar armies. The last Hoysala is said to have had a contingent of 20,000 Muhammadans in the battle at Trichinopoly. Inscriptions state that Dēvarāya I, a predecessor of Dēvarāya II, employed a force of Muhammadan cavalry. Dēvarāya employed these troops to train other archers, so that in the course of the next few years he had a body of 60,000 archers ready to take the field¹. With this reformed army he sent an expedition into the Bahmanī kingdom in 1443 which achieved considerable success against the Bahmanī forces. During the absence of the army an abortive attempt on Dēvarāya's life was made by one of his relatives. It was soon after this incident that ‘Abd-ur-Razzāq, the ambassador of Shāh Rukh from Samarqand, who had been for some time in Calicut, came to Vijayanagar and stayed a few months in the capital.

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From his account it appears that by 1442 the fortifications, temples, palaces, and public buildings of Vijayanagar had been completed. The city occupied a space of about sixty-four square miles, and had the seven enclosures—the accepted number of circuits for a first-class city. The three outermost enclosures contained only fields intended for cultivation, with the huts of those engaged on the land. The four inner enclosures were occupied by houses, the innermost containing the palace and its precincts. A number of channels had been led into the city from the Tungabhadra; one of them yet goes by the name Rāya channel. They were intended partly for the purpose of cultivation and partly for the water-supply of the city. Even allowing for exaggeration in Abd-ur-Razzāq's account, Vijayanagar under Devarāya II must have been a splendid city, and exceedingly well fortified. Devarāya II lived for six years after this date and died in February 1449, a brother of the same name having predeceased him by three years. Devarāya II, by far the greatest ruler of the first dynasty, was excelled only perhaps by Krishnadevarāya of all the kings of Vijayanagar. Under him the kingdom as a whole had been well knit together and brought under an ordered administration, chiefly through the genius of ‘the great Danayak’ of ‘Abd-ur-Razzāq, the Brāhman minister Lakkana or Lakshmī-dhara.

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Lakkana and his brother Madana were governors of important divisions in the south and passed from province to province by way of official promotion. There were other governors besides, each in his own province, and all of them were kept well in hand by the ruler and his chief ministers. The only frontier that caused anxiety was the northern frontier, and that through the activities of the monarch of Orissa. When Devarāya II died, therefore, the kingdom was in the most satisfactory condition and passed on without dispute to his eldest living son, Mallikārjuna.