The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c22.65

v1.c22.65

At the same time Akbar, while still before the walls of Asirgarh, sent an embassy to the Emperor of Vijayanagara ³. The account of this embassy has never been published hitherto. The letter of Fr. B. Coutinho which gives this information is dated Chandragiri, August, 1600, and seems to have been written during the stay of the ambassador at the court. Fr. Coutinho does not give the name of the ambassador, but only states that ‘he is a prudent and experienced man’. On reaching Chandragiri, since there was no building fitted for receiving such visitors, the official who was responsible for the entertainment of the ambassadors and their introduction to the King, asked the Jesuit Fathers to lodge him in their own house for two days. “We gave him a suitable place,” says Fr. Coutinho, “where he is staying for a month. It is he who informed us of what our Fathers had done at Achebar’s (Akbar’s) court”. The reason why the ambassador of Chandragiri stayed so long was that Venkata did not receive him in audience till he had waited twenty days, “as he (Venkata) had been warned by his councilors”, says the aforesaid Jesuit, “not to trust Achebar; because, if those three Muhammadan kings of Abdenegan or Melique (Ahmadnagar), Dialcan (Bijapur) and Mussalepatan (Golkonda) were to submit to him, he would easily also bring the Bisanagara Empire under his sway. On hearing this, the King, they say, replied that his kingdom was in the hands of God, and that ‘if He wishes to deprive me, he said, of my Empire, who will be able to stop Him? So much is certain, however, I shall never kiss the feet of a Muhammadan; should he come over here, war is sure to follow’ ”.