History of the Khaljis, A.D. 1290–1320 c12.33

c12.33

Another writer who speaks about the wealth of the south is Shihābuddin Abul Abbās Aḥmad, the author of *Masālikul Absār*. According to him gold had been flowing into India for a number of centuries and had never been exported.¹⁹ Amir Khusrau, Barani and Ferishtah are all unanimously of opinion that the gold and treasures 'Alāūddīn and his general Malik Kāfūr brought from the south were enormous. Not only 'Alāūddīn but some years later Muḥammad Tughlaq also obtained immense booty from the Deccan. On one occasion the loot from a single temple amounted to a sum that was carried on 200 elephants and several thousand bullocks. Even after the immense amount of wealth 'Alāūddīn and Muḥammad bin Tughlaq carried away to the north, Bahmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms in the south still possessed vast treasures. The Arab traveller Abdurrazzāq who visited Deccan in the 14th century bears testimony to the power and prosperity of the Vijayanager kingdom. "The country is for the most part well cultivated and fertile. In the king's treasury there are chambers with excavations in them, filled with molten gold, forming one mass. All the inhabitants of the country, whether high or low, even down to the artificers of the *bazar*, wear jewels and ornaments."²⁰ Ferishtah also asserts that even the poor in the Deccan put on gold ornaments and the high class people used to eat in gold and silver plates.²¹