A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of IndiaSewell, Robert
History
A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India
Sewell, Robert
Vijayanagar (Empire) -- History
Nuniz tells us that when the city of Raichur 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 Raya 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 Shah, 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 Adil Shah 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 Raya set out
to search for the Shah, 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 Bijapur, the Adil Shah's capital, which for a time
he occupied and left sadly injured. Then Asada Khan, the Shah's wily
courtier, successfully brought about the death of his personal enemy,
Salabat Khan, by inducing the Raya 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.
King Krishna had, in the city of Bijapur, taken prisoner three sons of
a former king of the Bahmani dynasty, who had been held captive by the
Adil Shahs, and he proclaimed the eldest as king of the Dakhan.[252]
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.
A little later Krishna Raya'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, Saluva
Timma, and his family. In this he was aided by some Portuguese who
happened to be present at the Durbar. On Saluva Timma's son escaping
to a "mountain range" -- perhaps Sandur, 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 Ramandrug -- the king summoned Timma and his brother and son,
and had their eyes put out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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