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
The attack ended in the reduction of the place, when the Sultan
returned to Kulbarga.
The BURHAN-I MAASIR CALLS the chief of Belgaum "Parkatapah," and Major
King, the translator of the work, gives a large variety of spellings of
the name, viz.: "Birkanah," "Parkatabtah," "Parkatiyah," "Parkitah,"
"Barkabtah."[156] Briggs gives it as "Birkana." It has been supposed
that the real name was Vikrama.
About the year 1475 there was a terrible famine in the Dakhan and
the country of the Telugus, which lasted for two years. At its close
the Hindu population of Kondapalle revolted, murdered the Muhammadan
governor, and invited aid from the king of Orissa. This monarch
accordingly advanced and laid siege to Rajahmundry, which was then
the governorship of Nizam-ul-Mulkh, but on the Shah marching in person
to the relief of the place the army of Orissa retired. In the latter
part of the year 882, which corresponds to March 1478 A.D., Muhammad
penetrated to the capital of Orissa, "and used no mercy in slaughtering
the inhabitants and laying waste the country of the enemy." The Rajah
submitted, and purchased his immunity from further interference on
the part of the Sultan by a present of some valuable elephants.
Firishtah and the BURHAN-I MAASIR differ considerably as to what
followed. The former states that, after his raid into Orissa,
Muhammad Shah reduced Kondapalle, where he destroyed a temple,
slew the Brahman priests attached to it, and ordered a mosque to be
erected on its site. He remained nearly three years at Rajahmundry,
secured the Telingana country, expelled some refractory zamindars,
and "resolved on the conquest of Nursing Raya."
"Nursing," says Firishtah, "was a powerful raja, possessing the country
between Carnatic[157] and Telingana, extending along the sea-coast,
to Matchiliputtum,[158] and had added much of the Beejanuggur territory
to his own by conquest, with several strong forts."
This was probably the powerful chief Narasimha Raya, a relation of
the king of Vijayanagar, who, intrusted with the government of large
tracts, was rising rapidly to independence under the weak and feeble
monarch whom he finally supplanted. The Sultan went to Kondapalle,[159]
and there was told that, at a distance of ten days' journey, "was
the temple of Kunchy,[160] the walls and roof of which were plated
with gold, ornamented with precious stones;" upon receipt of which
intelligence the Sultan is said to have made a forced march thither,
taking with him only 6000 cavalry, and to have sacked the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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