The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c16.32

v1.c16.32

According to modern authors this convoy, as well as the noble retinue which preceded it, made for the fort of Penukonda ²; but nothing of the kind is said in the original contemporary sources. Ferishta does not speak of this retreat; Frederick only remarks that they "fled away" ³; Faria y Sousa mentions no destination at all; Couto alone gives a hint, so long forgotten, which is the real solution of this problem. "They," says he, "with all this outfit left for the interior, and stored everything in the palace of Tremil; for it was very well fortified on an impregnable mountain, at ten days' distance from Bisnaga" ⁴. Now, where was this palace of Tremil? We cannot offer a satisfactory answer, but it seems to us that the circumstances mentioned by the Portuguese author,—viz. that it was a fortified up-country place, standing on the top of an impregnable mountain and ten days distant from Vijayanagara, and that its name was Tremil,—cannot be applied to any other spot but to the temple on the Tirumala hill at Tirupati ⁵. Its shrine of Sri Venkatesvara Perumal, surrounded by three stone walls on the top of the holy hill Tirumala, 2,500 feet high, might easily be called by the Portuguese writer the impregnable palace of Tremil. Moreover, Correa states that the sovereigns of Vijayanagara had a house or palace at Tirupati¹, and Sadasiva himself in the beginning of his reign used to go to the sacred fair held there². On the other hand we recognize that its distance from Vijayanagara does not agree with the ten days' journey given by Couto; but for a man who never travelled through the country, one or two days more does not make much difference. Indeed it would not be at all strange that the first monarch of the Aravidu Dynasty took shelter for a while, in those days of distress, in the same country where his successors settled finally: first at Chandragiri, just at the foot of the Tirumala hill, and then at Vellore.