History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c11.72

c11.72

The rear guard was formed of 3,000 men who were stationed behind the main wings of the royal army under the command of Asad-al-Din Kai Khusrau of Persia.²⁶ At Siesta hour they started towards the Hindu camp. The enemy was unprepared for attack; his horses had gone out to graze in the fields. Asad-al-Din delivered a surprise attack. Vir Ballāla, mistaking the enemy for thieves, came out to fight with them, but the lack of preparation proved fatal. The stratagem of the Musalmans succeeded well enough, and the cause which the octogenarian warrior had at heart was lost. He attempted flight, but was captured by Nāsir-al-Din, a nephew of Ghiyas, who was about to slay him. His life was spared when it was discovered that he was the Raja himself.²⁷ The captive warrior was taken to the heartless Ghiyas who shrank from no crime, however atrocious, to satiate his wrath, and though apparently the Sultan treated him with courtesy and accepted riches, horses, and elephants from him, he was afterwards killed and his skin was stuffed with bran and hung from the ramparts of Madura, where it was seen by Ibn Batūtah in that condition.²⁸ All his baggage was seized by the enemy until nothing was left. Thus perished the greatest of the Hoysalas, a warrior of undying fame, who notwithstanding the infirmities of age, fearlessly strove to check the power of the Musalmans. The circumstances in which he met his death have invested his career with a halo of martyrdom, and there is no