How Southern India Founded Vijayanagar

Thus the period at which our history opens, about the year 1330, found the whole of Northern India down to the Vindhya mountains firmly under Muslim rule.

Continuing The Beginning of the Vijayanagar Empire,
our selection from A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar by Robert Sewell published in 1900. The selection is presented in five easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Beginning of the Vijayanagar Empire.

Time: 1336
Place: Vijayanagar, India

War followed war, and from that period Northern India knew no rest. At the end of the thirteenth century the Muslims began to press southwards into the Dakhan. In 1293 Ala-ud-din Khilji, nephew of the king of Delhi, captured Devagiri. Four years later Gujarat was attacked. In 1303 the reduction of Warangal was attempted. In 1306 there was a fresh expedition to Devagiri. In 1309 Malik Kafur, the celebrated general, with an immense force swept into the Dakhan and captured Warangal. The old capital of the Hoysala Ballalas at Dvarasamudra was taken in 1310, and Malik Kafur went to the Malabar coast where he erected a mosque, and afterwards returned to his master with enormous booty.[1] Fresh fighting took place in 1312. Six years later Mubarak of Delhi marched to Devagiri and inhumanly flayed alive its unfortunate prince, Haripala Deva, setting up his head at the gate of his own city. In 1323 Warangal fell.

[1: According to tradition the wealth carried off was something fabulous.]

Thus the period at which our history opens, about the year 1330, found the whole of Northern India down to the Vindhya mountains firmly under Moslem rule, while the followers of that faith had overrun the Dakhan and were threatening the south with the same fate. South of the Krishna the whole country was still under Hindu domination, but the supremacy of the old dynasties was shaken to its base by the rapidly advancing terror from the north. With the accession in 1325 of Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi things became worse still. Marvellous stories of his extraordinary proceedings circulated amongst the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and there seemed to be no bound to his intolerance, ambition, and ferocity.

Everything, therefore, seemed to be leading up to but one inevitable end — the ruin and devastation of the Hindu provinces; the annihilation of their old royal houses, the destruction of their religion, their temples, their cities. All that the dwellers in the south held most dear seemed tottering to its fall.

Suddenly, about the year 1344 A.D., there was a check to this wave of foreign invasion — a stop — a halt — then a solid wall of opposition; and for 250 years Southern India was saved.

The check was caused by a combination of small Hindu states — two of them already defeated, Warangal and Dvarasamudra — defeated, and therefore in all probability not over-confident; the third, the tiny principality of Anegundi. The solid wall consisted of Anegundi grown into the great empire of the Vijayanagar. To the kings of this house all the nations of the south submitted.

If a straight line be drawn on the map of India from Bombay to Madras, about half-way across will be found the River Tungabhadra, which, itself a combination of two streams running northwards from Maisur, flows in a wide circuit north and east to join the Krishna not far from Kurnool. In the middle of its course the Tungabhadra cuts through a wild rocky country lying about forty miles north-west of Bellary, and north of the railway line which runs from that place to Dharwar. At this point, on the north bank of the river, there existed about the year 1330 a fortified town called Anegundi, the “Nagundym” of our chronicles, which was the residence of a family of chiefs owning a small state in the neighborhood. They had, in former years, taken advantage of the lofty hills of granite which cover that tract to construct a strong citadel having its base on the stream. Fordable at no point within many miles the river was full of running water at all seasons of the year, and in flood times formed in its confined bed a turbulent rushing torrent with dangerous falls in several places. Of the Anegundi chiefs we know little, but they were probably feudatories of the Hoysala Ballalas. Firishtah declares that they had existed as a ruling family for seven hundred years prior to the year 1350 A.D.

[It is highly probable that amongst the hills and crags about the upper fortress of Anegundi there may be found remains of a date long prior to the fourteenth century; and it is much to be regretted that up to now no scientific examination of that tract, which lies in the present territories of Haidarabad, has been carried out. Want of leisure always prevented my undertaking any exploration north of the river; but from the heights of Vijayanagar on the south side I often looked wistfully at the long lines of fortification visible on the hills opposite. It is to be hoped that ere long the Government of Madras may place us in possession of a complete map of Vijayanagar and its environs, showing the whole area enclosed by the outermost line of fortifications, and including the outworks and suburbs. Hospett and Anegundi were both part of the great city in its palmy days, and Kampli appears to have been a sort of outpost.]

The chronicle of Nuniz gives a definite account of how the sovereigns of Vijayanagar first began to acquire the power which afterwards became so extensive. This account may or may not be accurate in all details, but it at least tallies fairly with the epigraphical and other records of the time. According to him, Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi, having reduced Gujarat, marched southwards through the Dakhan Balaghat, or high lands above the western ghats, and a little previous to the year 1336 [2] seized the town and fortress of Anegundi. Its chief was slain, with all the members of his family.

[2: Nuniz erroneously gives the date as 1230. The error will be commented on hereafter.]

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