Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c11.29

c11.29

Since the Malabar coast formed part of the Vijayanagar Empire, we may as well consider the situation in the major towns of the kingdom’s interior here only. Vijayanagar the capital was the greatest city. It caught the eye and the imagination of almost every visitor—Paes. Nuniz, A. Razzaq, Nikitin, Varthema, Barbosa etc. To Varthema it was a second paradise,¹⁹ to Barbosa its inhabitants were numerous beyond counting; the streets overflowing with the multitudes of them.²⁰ Santo Stefano observes that there were a thousand Christian houses in Vijayanagar.²¹ Using a co-efficient of five residents to one house, the Christians alone would be about 5,000. Paes says that Vijayanagar was as large as Rome.²² It is estimated by modern scholars that the city had a population of 500,000 in the first half of the sixteenth century.²³ Vijayanagar was perhaps the largest city in the world in the fifteenth century.