A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c17.s6: The Events That Followed the Battle
A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c17.s6
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The Events That Followed the Battle
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Nuniz gives us in detail an account of the events that followed the victory of Krishna Deva Râya, and considering that he wrote only about fifteen years after their occurrence, we should do well to receive his account as probably true in the main. Firishtah, perhaps naturally, preserves a complete silence on the subject.
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Nuniz tells us that when the city of Raichûr surrendered, the Hindu king made a triumphal entry into it, and treated the garrison with kindness and consideration; while the other Muhammadan kings sent envoys to Krishna Deva Râya on hearing of his success, and received a haughty and irritating reply. Krishna Deva then returned to Vijayanagar and held high festival. Shortly afterwards an ambassador arrived from the defeated Shâh, and was treated with scant courtesy for more than a month, after which he was received in audience; when the king sent answer by him to his enemy, that if the Âdil Shâh would come to him, do obeisance, and kiss his foot, his lands and fortresses should be restored to him. No attention being paid to this, the Râya set out to search for the Shâh, hoping that he would be induced to do homage in the manner demanded, and appearing to ignore altogether the effect which would necessarily be produced on the minds of the other kings of the Dakhan by this contemplated supreme humiliation of one of their number. The submission never took place. Krishna led his army as far north as Bîjapûr, the Âdil Shâh’s capital, which for a time he occupied and left sadly injured. Then Asada Khân, the Shâh’s wily courtier, successfully brought about the death of his personal enemy, Salâbat Khân, by inducing the Râya to order his execution; an act to which the king was led by the machinations of the arch-intriguer, who subordinated his chief’s interests to his own selfish ends.
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King Krishna had, in the city of Bîjapûr, taken prisoner three sons of a former king of the Bâhmanî dynasty, who had been held captive by the Âdil Shâhs, and he proclaimed the eldest as king of the Dakhan.¹ This abortive attempt to subvert the rule of the five kings who had established themselves on the ruins of the single Dakhan sovereignty naturally fell flat, and only resulted in stiffening the hostility which these sovereigns felt towards their common foe.
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¹ We hear nothing of this from Firishtah. But we know that the Bâhmanî Sultan Mahmûd II., who died in 1518, had three sons, Ahmad, Alâ-ud-Dîn, and Walî-Ullah, the first of whom became Sultan in December 1517, the second in 1521, the third in the same year; in all cases only nominally.
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A little later Krishna Râya’s son, a young prince on whom he desired to confer his crown, and in whose favour he had even gone so far as openly to abdicate, died suddenly of poison, and the king, then himself in a dying condition, arrested and imprisoned his own minister, Sâluva Timma, and his family. In this he was aided by some Portuguese who happened to be present at the Durbar. On Sâluva Timma’s son escaping to a “mountain range”—perhaps Sandûr, on the south of the capital, where there are still to be seen the remains of a strong fortress built of cyclopean masonry on the summit of the highest hill, now known as Râmandrûg—the king summoned Timma and his brother and son, and had their eyes put out.
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About this time the Âdil Shâh advanced again to retrieve his broken fortunes, but fled incontinently on hearing the news that Krishna Deva was advancing in person to meet him. That the king, though sorely ill, did indeed move in the manner stated, seems to be confirmed by the statement of Nuniz that on the way he bought six hundred horses from the Portuguese. Krishna began to make preparations for an attack on Belgaum, then in the Âdil Shâh’s possession, and sent an envoy to invite the assistance in this enterprise of the Portuguese at Goa; but he fell too seriously ill to carry out his project, and died shortly afterwards at the age of from forty-two to forty-five years. It was then the year 1530 A.D.
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He was succeeded by Achyuta.
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So far Nuniz. We learn something more from other writers. Barros states that about the year 1523 Sâluva Timma, the king’s minister, invaded the mainlands near Goa, which had been recently acquired by the Portuguese under Ruy de Mello; that he advanced towards Ponda with a small force, but that he was attacked and driven back.¹ Shortly after this, viz., in April 1524, the Muhammadans of Bîjapûr attacked these same mainlands with success, during the viceroyalty of Dom Duarte de Menezes. On October 31 of that year the Chamber of Goa wrote a report to the king of Portugal in which occurs the following passage :—
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¹ Dec. III. l. iv. c. 10.
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“ The mainland which Ruy de Mello, who was captain of this city, conquered, was entered by the Moors, who used to possess it, in the month of April of five hundred and twenty-four, and they hold it as theirs, and the first Thanadar’s district which they took was that of Perna, which is by the seaside. There they captured two Portuguese, and one of them was the Thanadar; these are prisoners in the fortress of Bylgan (Belgaum), of which the Suffilarim is captain.”¹
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¹ Correa, Stanley’s translation (Hakluyt edition), p. 387, note; Danvers, “Portuguese in India,” i. 363. The “Suffilarim” is Asada Khân. Mr. Baden-Powell has published, in the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* for April 1900, an interesting paper on the king of Portugal’s regulations for, and record of customs in, the newly acquired tracts, dated at Goa in A.D. 1526, and called *Foral dos usos e costumes*.
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It is evident, therefore, that “the Moors” were successful, and yet it is curious that very little mention is made of this circumstance by other historians. Firishtah does not mention it; and it may therefore be reasonably inferred that the “Moors” in question were not the royal troops acting under the orders of the Sultan, but belonged to the local levies of Asada Khân, then chief of Belgaum.
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According to Firishtah, the defeat at Raichûr was followed by Ismâîl Âdil Shâh’s marrying his sister to Burhân Nizâm Shâh of Ahmadnagar; quarrelling and fighting with him (A.D. 1523); again fighting with him (1528); marrying another sister to Alâ-ud-Dîn Ummad of Bîrâr; and fighting with and entirely defeating Sultan Amîr Barîd of Bîdar, then an old man, whom he captured. On the death of Krishna Deva, Ismâîl took advantage of the confusion of the Hindus to retake possession of Mudkal and Raichûr.
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Firishtah gives no dates for the two last of the events above noted, but the submission of Amîr Barîd to the Âdil Shâh apparently did not take place till 1529, for Barros¹ implies that it occurred after an event which cannot have happened earlier than 1529—namely, an attack on Ponda by three Hindu chiefs, which led to the inhabitants appealing for help to the then governor of Goa, Nuno da Cunha. Da Cunha was not governor till 1529. “*At this time,*” writes the historian, “Melique Verido² submitted to the Hidalchan, by advice of Madre Maluco and Cota Maluco, and came to his camp in poor clothes, and flung himself at his feet.” This evidently refers to what occurred after the Barîd’s capture by the Âdil Shâh, if Firishtah’s story is true.³
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¹ Dec. IV. l. vii. c. I.
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² Mallik Barîd. The Hidalchan is the Âdil Khân or the Âdil Shâh; Madre Maluco is the Imâd Shâh, and Cota Maluco the Qutb Shâh.
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³ Perhaps this matter ought to find place under the reign of Achyuta Râya, but I mention it here as it may have occurred before the death of Krishna Deva.
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Let it be remembered, though the fact has no bearing on the history of Vijayanagar at this date, that in 1526 the Emperor Bâbar captured Delhi, and established himself as the first monarch of the great Moghul dynasty. He was succeeded in 1530 by Humâyun, and on the latter’s death in 1556 the great Akbar attained the throne.