The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s2.t5.13

v2.c15.s2.t5.13

The earliest of ‘Alā-ud-Dīn’s expeditions against Telingāṇa took place in A.D. 1303. The objects of the invasion were plunder and territorial expansion. ‘Alā-ud-Dīn wanted money to finance his wars against the Rajputs and the Mongols, who constituted serious menaces to the safety of the Sultanate of Delhi. He was eager to despoil the rich Hindu kingdoms of the South so that he might organize efficiently the defence of his own territories. At the time of dispatching his first campaign against Telingāṇa, ‘Alā-ud-Dīn was also engaged in besieging the fort of Chitor in Rajputana. Malik Fakhr-ud-Dīn Jūna, *dādbek-i-hazart*, and Jhāju of Kara, the nephew of Nuṣrat Khān, were sent with all the available officers and troops of Hindustan to invade Warangal. The account of the expedition which has come down to us is indeed very meagre, since such of the Muslim historians as deign to notice it dismiss it hurriedly in a few words. The Muslim army commanded by the two generals mentioned above is said to have marched by way of Bengal and to have suffered disaster in the course of the march owing to floods in which a large part of it perished. However that may be, the expedition did, as a matter of historical fact, reach Telingāṇa. There is reason to believe that it was worsted in an encounter with the Kākatīya forces. The chronicles of the Velama chiefs embodied in the *Velugōṭivāri Vaṃśāvaḷi* allude to a Kākatīya victory over the Muslims of Delhi prior to the advent of Malik Nā’ib Kāfūr. Pōtugaṇṭi Maili, one of the officers of the court of Pratāparudra, claims to have destroyed the pride of the Turushkas of Delhi in a battle near Upparapalli in the Karimnagar district of the old Hyderabad State.¹ As Maili is said to have visited the court of ‘Alā-ud-Dīn Khaljī at Delhi on a later occasion, the victory at Upparapalli must have been won by him over the army commanded by Malik Fakhr-ud-Dīn Jūna. Venna, the son of Rēcherla Prasāditya, one of Rudrāmbā’s ministers, is also said to have overthrown the Turushka army in battle.² As Venna’s sons are reported to have participated in the later wars of Pratāparudra with the Muslims, his victory over the Turushkas must also have been won at Upparapalli. An epigraph engraved on a pillar standing in the fort of Warangal, copied by the Mackenzie Surveyors in 1806, refers to a victory of Manaraṅgōdari Rāju and Layiṅgayadēva over the Muslims in Saṃvat 1362 (A.D. 1304-5).³ It is evident from these records that Malik Fakhr-ud-Dīn and Jūna penetrated into the heart of Telingāṇa, and reached Upparapalli in the neighbourhood of the capital Warangal. At that place their advance was checked by the Kākatīya army, and in the battle that followed the Delhi army, having sustained a crushing defeat, was compelled to retreat in confusion.