The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.178.2

v3.c29.178.2

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.