A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c16.15

c16.15

With these few facts to guide us, we turn to the chronicles of Nuniz and Firishtah, trying in vain to obtain some points of contact between them as to the origin of the second dynasty—some clue which will enable us to reconcile differences and arrive at the real truth. If we are to be guided purely by probabilities, it would seem that the history given by Nuniz is likely to be the more accurate of the two. His chronicle was written about the year 1535, during the reign of Achyuta; he lived at the Hindu capital itself, and he gained his information from Hindu sources not long subsequent to the events related. Firishtah did not write till about A.D. 1607, was not in any sense a contemporary recorder, and did not live amongst the Hindus, but at the court of Nizâm Shâh at Ahmadnagar. The lengths of reigns, however, as given by Nuniz do not tally with the dates which we obtain from sources undoubtedly reliable.