A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c17.s2.14

c17.s2.14

It will be remembered how Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi² raised, according to Firishtah, an army of 370,000 men for the conquest of Persia, and when he wanted to destroy the inhabitants of a certain tract of country, he “ordered out his army as if he were going hunting,” surrounded the tract, and then, pressing inwards towards the centre, slaughtered all the inhabitants therein. This implies that he took, when merely hunting, immense numbers of men with him. Shahab-ud-Dîn, indeed, declared that Muhammad Taghlaq had an army of 900,000 horse;³ and Nuniz, on the opening page of his chronicle, says that this Sultan invaded the Bâlâghât with 800,000 horse.⁴ This estimate was, of course, only according to the tradition extant in 1535.