A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c15.4

c15.4

THE Chālukya empire disappeared at the end of the twelfth century and the Chola tottered at the beginning of the thirteenth. For a century thereafter, the history of South India is the history of the four kingdoms that rose on the ruins of the vanished empires and filled the annals of the century with their mutual antagonisms. The kingdoms were the Pāndya and the Hoysala in the south, and the Kākatiya and Yādava in the north. Minor powers like the Telugu-Chodas of Nellore played their part as auxiliaries to the chief powers. The period was marked by no striking developments in polity or society although industry, trade and the arts continued to flourish with their normal vigour. Marco Polo who visited many parts of the country in 1292-3 gives a vivid account of prevailing conditions. The Muslim invasions of the Deccan which began towards the end of the century upset all the four kingdoms and caused a period of confusion terminated by the rise and expansion of the Bāhmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms in the second quarter of the fourteenth century.