Vijayanagara

Title: Vijayanagara (The New Cambridge History of India 1.2)

Author: Burton Stein

Publisher: Foundation Books 1999 (First published - Cambridge University Press 1993)

ISBN: 81-85618-46-1

Pages: 146

This small book constitutes a part of the New Cambridge History of India. As can be judged from its size, the range of the book is rather limited. The author has failed to instil the sense of grandeur this medieval empire possessed to an uninitiated person of medieval Indian history. Even after reading this book, such a person will not be able to gather a comprehensive view of the empire and its leaders.

Vijayanagara is well remembered today, thanks to the extraordinarily impressive structures in Hampi, its capital city. This was not the case two centuries back when the empire was a forgotten one, with Hampi in ruins. The first historical works on Vijayanagara was by Mark Wilks (1810) and Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1815). Wilks was the political agent of the English East India Company at the court of Wodeyar rajas in Mysore who were reinstated after the crushing of the usurper Tipu Sultan in 1799. The flame of knowledge kindled by these Englishmen were relayed through notable Indian scholars like S Krishnaswamy Aiyangar and K A Nilakanta Sastri, whose extensive researches set the standard in erudite, indigenous learning.

12^th century South India was dominated by four kingdoms in the peninsula – Hoysala, Kakatiya, Chola and Pandya. The last two were in Tamil country and enjoyed rich agricultural revenue from the bounty provided by the river Kaveri. The northern kingdoms presided over dry areas, necessitating them to look for alternative revenue sources like development of dry crops, trade or outright military measures on the southern neighbours. The northern frontier was fixed by the Bahmani sultanate. Invasions from the north by Malik Kafur, the commander of Alauddin Khilji in the beginning of the 14^th century which came as far south as Tirunelveli made the ground work for rapid changes in the political situation. The older kingdoms were weakened and subsidiary rulers began to assume greater powers. Mummadi Singa, who established the Kampili kingdom at Anegondi near Hampi was defeated. Harihara and Bukka, the first two of the Sangama brothers who were in the army of Singa broke free and established the Sangama dynasty as the first of the Vijayanagara royal lineages in 1344. Rise of Kannada and Telugu regionalisms after India’s independence prompted allied historians to come up with alternate versions of what happened six centuries before. The Kannada protagonists declare that the Sangama brothers were in the employ of king Vira Ballala III of the Hoysalas while the Telugu ones claim them to be under Pratapa Rudra of the Kakatiyas.

The 14^th century was noted for the way in which the military tactics of the peninsula changed by incorporating modern weapons and tactics. Well mobilised cavalry and field canons were the trump cards of the Muslim invaders and the Hindu kingdoms were forced to employ them even at the cost of heavy foreign imports as the horse is not native to India. Cavaliers were in great demand everywhere and conversion of these warriors to Islam were actively encouraged by the sultans. Military careers offered ever wider choices of employers, and these increased for any fighter who converted to Islam. While being a Muslim did not confer equality with the great Turkic commanders, it did nevertheless open great careers. An example was the Khalji commander Malik Kafur, a Gujarati convert to Islam, who held the view that Muslim soldiers serving Hindu kings whom he captured should not be killed because they could at least repeat the credo! Thus, being a Muslim did confer standing for any man in a society becoming more urban under Muslim pressures (p.23). This was just to show the fanatical zeal of those times.

Vijayanagara’s unheralded architect was Devaraya II who reigned in the middle of the 15^th century. However, the man who coloured the imaginations of millions and still do so, was Krishnadevaraya who reigned for 20 years from 1509. Krishnadevaraya ended the custom of local chiefs governing parts of the empire as patrimony and appointed military commanders loyal to the king instead. Such a sweeping centralisation was alien to South India and was reminiscent of the Mughal’s administrative practises in the North. Though such a scheme assured central hegemony for the time being, the war chieftains were more or less independent and conspired against the king as and when the opportunity reared its head. Powerful generalissimos found it easy to topple central authority when it was weakened by the constitution of the incumbent or succession struggles between brothers. Apart from the Sangamas, three other dynasties ruled the empire, namely Saluvas, Tuluvas and Aravidu. Scions of all these three, Saluva Narasimha of the Saluvas, Narasa Nayaka of the Tuluvas and Aravidi Bukka of the Aravidu were faithful commanders of the Vijayanagara army at different times. Krishnadevaraya belonged to the Tuluva dynasty.

Vijayanagara represents the transformation of South Indian society from medieval to modern times. The notable kingdoms and cities in the modern era took shape during the 16^th century. Wodeyars were the local chiefs of Srirangapatna who profited from the crushing of the Ummattur chiefs who reigned at Sivasamudram and who offended the great Krishnadevaraya. Chamaraja Wodeyar (1513-53) established a small fortified place, Mahisura-nagara which later transformed to Mysore. Similarly, Kempe Gowda established a principality around present day Bangalore in 1513. The magnificent development of the temple at Tirupati from the status of an ancient shrine to a grand temple occurred around this time. Vijayanagara kings accepted the deity at Tirupati as their tutelary divinity.  Saluva Narasimha began this process in 1450s when he donated tax-free land to the temple and Achyutadevaraya was coronated at the temple in 1529.

Seeds of destruction of the great empire was sown during the reign of Achyutadevaraya who was the brother and successor of Krishnadevaraya. The Nayaka kingdoms of the south turned belligerent and the problems were compounded by the successionist struggles initiated by Aliya Rama Raja, the son-in-law of Krishnadevaraya. Rama Raja established the Aravidu dynasty and his machiavellian tactics against the Deccan sultanates backfired in the end, when they joined a common front against him. The combined Muslim forces decimated the Vijayanagara armies in a humiliating battle in 1565 at Talikota in which Rama Raja himself was killed. The victors followed the vanquished to their capital city and a sustained destruction campaign lasted for several weeks until the conquering forces were exhausted from the sheer damage they caused to the magnificent capital city at Hampi which lay in ruins before them. Hundreds of temples were destroyed and the bounty they pillaged from there helped the Golkonda sultans to build the city of Hyderabad.

Vijayanagara kings continued to rule even after 1565, but they had to abandon their capital city. Tirumala, a brother of Rama Raja ruled from Penukonda as a skeleton of the erstwhile regime. Most of the territories of the kingdom was now ruled by their former commanders who payed tribute to the former masters only in name. Civil wars among the princes in 1614 and 1630s sounded the death knell for the dynasty which ended when Sriranga III died in 1672. Five principalities arose from the ashes of the empire. They were the Nayaka kingdoms of Ikkeri, Mysore, Gingee, Thanjavur and Madurai. The last three were in Tamil country, but were ruled by Telugu speaking aristocrats from the eastern coasts of the empire. The Karnatak kingdoms were defeated by Hyder Ali Khan in the middle of 18^th century and all kingdoms were gradually assimilated by the British. The port at Pulicat lost prominence with the collapse of the empire and Masulipatnam in the empire of the Golkonda sultans assumed its place.

The book is well researched and a lot of books are indicated for further reference. Being small in size, it can be finished quite quickly. A very fine description of the economic and political conditions prevailing in the age is given.

However, no more plus-points can be pointed for this work. The style is terse and makes uninteresting reading. The book is thoroughly disappointing because it fails to provide even a chronological list of the kings, even as an appendix. The narration is not continuous, as it makes a sample of the beginning of the empire, then fast forwards hundred years to the reign of Devaraya II and then quickly moves on to Krishnadevaraya and the end of the empire. The name ‘Talikota’ (the place at which the Vijayanagara army was convincingly defeated by the sultans in 1565) is not even mentioned in the entire text of the book. Also Stein confuses the tolerance of Indian kings as opportunism when he remarks about the appointing of Muslim soldiers by Devaraya II. He says Devaraya’s opening to Muslim soldiers, his permission to construct mosques and cemeteries in the city, must shatter any remaining illusions of historians that the Hindu and dharmic ideology which may be attributed to the Sanagama founders of the kingdom continued to shape imperial policies (p.70). Being a foreigner, Stein seems to be unable to grasp the ethos of the times in India. The book makes inconsistent remarks about Aliya Rama Raja, the last prominent king. In one location he is said to be the brother-in-law of Krishnadevaraya (p.124) whereas on page 113 and several other pages, he is declared to be his son-in-law. The confusion still remains.

The book is not recommendable. However, this may provide some good insight into the economic conditions prevailing in South India during the three centuries starting from the 14^th.

Rating: 2 Star