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
Deva Raya I. lived till at least 1412 A.D., and was succeeded by
his son Vira-Vijaya, whom Nuniz calls "Visaya," and who, he says,
reigned six years. The last extant inscription of Deva Raya I. is
dated in A.D. 1412 -- 13, the first of his successor Vijaya in 1413
-- 14. Vijaya's last known inscription is one of 1416 -- 17, and the
first yet known of his successor, his eldest son, Deva Raya II.,
is dated Monday, June 26, 1424 -- 25. Nuniz gives Deva Raya II. a
reign of twenty-five years.
I am inclined to think that Deva Raya II. began to reign in 1419,
for the following reason. The informants of Nuniz stated that
during Vijaya's reign he "did nothing worth relating," and the
chronicle records that during the reign which followed, namely that
of Deva Raya II., there was "constant warfare." Now we have it from
Firishtah that in 1417 Firuz, Sultan of Kulbarga, commenced a war of
aggression against the Hindus of Telingana He besieged the fortress
of Pangul,[100] seventy miles north-east of Adoni, for a period of
two years, but the attempt to reduce it ended in failure owing to a
pestilence breaking out amongst both men and horses.
"Many of the first nobility deserted the camp and tied with their
followers to their jaghires. At this crisis Dewul Roy collected his
army, and having obtained aid from the surrounding princes, even to
the Raja of Telingana (Warangal), marched against the sultan with a
vast host of horse and foot."
This then took place in 1419 A.D., and since this energetic action was
not consonant with the character of Vijaya, the FAINEANT sovereign,
"who did nothing worth recording" in all his career, we must suppose
that it took place as soon as Deva Raya, his successor, was crowned;
when the nobles surrounding him (he was, I believe, quite young when
he began to reign)[101] filled with zeal and ambition, roused the
Hindu troops and in the king's name plunged into war against their
country's hereditary foe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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