UPSC History Vijaynagar and Bahmani Empire NCERT Extracts - Vijayanagara and Bahmanids

 The Vijayanagara Empire

• The Vijayanagara kingdom was founded by Harihara and Bukka who belonged to a family of five brothers.
• According to a legend, they had been the feudatories of the Kakatiyas of Warangal and later became ministers in the kingdom of Kampili in modem Kamataka.
• At the instance of their guru, Vidyaranya, they were re-admitted to Hinduism and established their capital at Vijayanagar.
• The date of Harihar's coronation is placed at 1336.
• The dissolution of the Hoysala kingdom enabled Harihara and Bukka to expand their tiny principality.
• By 1346, the whole of the Hoysala kingdom has passed into the hands of the Vijayanagara rulers. In this struggle, Harihara and Bukka were aided by their brothers who, with their relations, took up the administration of the areas conquered by their effort.
• The Vijayanagara kingdom was, thus a kind of cooperative commonwealth at first.
• To the north, however, Vijayanagara faced a powerful enemy in the shape of the Bahmani kingdom.
• The interests of the Vijayanagara rulers and the Bahmani sultans clashed in three separate and distinct areas: in the Tungabhadra doab, in the Krishna-Godavari delta, and in the Marathwada country.
• The Tungabhadra doab was the region between the rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra.
• The struggle for the mastery of the Krishna-Godavari basin which was very fertile and which with its numerous ports controlled the foreign trade of the region was often linked up with the struggle for the Tungabhadra doab.
• The greatest success of Harihara II was in wresting Belgaum and Goa in the west from the Bahmani kingdom. He also sent an expedition to north Sri Lanka.
• After a period of confusion, Harihara II was succeeded by Deva Raya I (1404-1422).
• He was defeated by the Bahmani ruler Firuz Shah and he had to pay ten lakhs of huns and pearls and elephants as an indemnity.
• He also agreed to marry his daughter to the sultan, ceding to him in dowry Bankapur in the doab in order to obviate all future dispute.
• Deva Raya-I did not neglect the arts of peace. He constructed a dam across the Tungabhadra so that he could bring the canals into the city to relieve the shortage of water.
• It irrigated the neighbouring fields also, for we are told that the canals increased his revenues by 3,50,000
• He also built a dam on the river Haridra for irrigation purposes.
• Afte some confusion, Deva Raya-II (1425-1446), who is considered the greatest ruler of the dynasty, ascended the throne at Vijayanagara.
• In order to strengthen his army, he inducted more Muslims in his army.
• According to Ferishta, Deva Raya-II felt that the superiority of the Bahmani army was due to their sturdier horses and their large body of good archers.
• Nuniz was a Portuguese writer of the sixteenth century.
• He tells us that the kings of Quilon, Sri Lanka, Pulicat, Pegu and Tenasserim (in Burma and Malaya) paid tribute to Deva Raya-II.
• Nicolo Conti was an Italian traveler. He had visited Vijayanagara in 1420.
• Ferishta also says: 'The princes of the house of Bahmani maintained their superiority by valour only; for in power, wealth and extent of the country, the rayas of Beejanagar (Vijayanagara) greatly exceeded them."
• Abdur Razzaq was a Persian traveler. He had travelled widely in and outside India, visited Vijayanagara in the reign of Deva Raya II.
• Abdur Razzaq considers Vijayanagara as one of the most splendid cities anywhere in the world which he had seen or heard of.

 The Bahmani Kingdom: Its Expansion and Disintegration

• The Bahmani kingdom had come into existence in 1347.
• Its founder was Alauddin Hasan, an Afghan adventurer.
• He had risen in the service of a brahmana, named Gangu, and is therefore, known as Hasan Gangu. After his coronation, he assumed the title of Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah. He is said to have traced his descent from a half mythical hero of Iran, Bahman Shah.
• The most remarkable figure in the Bahmani kingdom during the period was Firuz Shah Bahmani (1397-1422).
• He was well-acquainted with the religious sciences, that is, commentaries on the Quran, jurisprudence, etc., and was particularly fond of the natural science such as botany, geometry, logic, etc.
• He was a good calligraphist and a poet and often composed extempore verses.
• According to Ferishta, he was well versed not only in Persian, Arabic and Turkish, but also in Telugu, Kannada and Marathi.
• He had a large number of wives in his harams from various countries and regions, including many Hindu wives, and we are told that he used to converse with each of them in their own language.
• Firuz Shah Bahmani was determined to make the Deccan the cultural centre of India.
• The king also encouraged learned men of Iran and Iraq to come to Delhi.
• He used to say that kings should draw around them the learned and meritorious persons of all nations, so that from their society they might obtain information and thus acquire some of the advantages acquired by travelling into different regions of the globe.
• Firuz Shah Bahmani encouraged the pursuit of astronomy and built an observatory near Daulatabad.
• Firuz Shah Bahmani married to the daughter of Deva Raya-I.
• He was compelled to abdicate in favour of his brother, Ahmad Shah-I, who is called a saint (wali) on account of his association with the famous sufi saint Gesu Daraz.
• In order to consolidate his rule over the newly acquired territories, he shifted the capital from Gulbarga to Bidar.

Mahmud Gawan

• The Bahmani kingdom gradually expanded and reached the height of its power and territorial limits during the prime ministership of Mahmud Gawan.
• The early life of Mahmud Gawan is obscure. He was an Iranian by birth and was at first a trader. He was introduced to the sultan and soon became a favourite, and was granted the title of 'Chief of the Merchants' (Malik-ul-Tujjar).
• Soon, he became prime minister of Peshwa. For almost 20 years, Mahmud Gawan dominated the affairs of the state.
• Mahmud Gawan was a great patron of arts. He built a magnificent madarasa or college in the capital, Bidar.
• This fine building, which was decorated with coloured tiles, was three storeys high, and had accommodation for one thousand teachers and students who were given clothes and food free.
• His opponents managed to poison the ears of the young sultan who had him executed in 1482. Mahmud Gawan was over 70 years old at the time.
• The various governors became independent. Soon, the Bahmani kingdom was divided into five principalities: Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar and Bidar.
• The Bahmani kingdom acted as a cultural bridge between the north and the south India.

Climax of the Vijayanagara Empire and Its Disintegration

• There was confusion in the Vijayanagara empire after the death of Deva Raya-II. After some time, the throne was usurped by the king's minister, Saluva.
• Saluva Dynasty - Saluva restored internal law and order, and founded a new dynasty.
• Tuluva dynasty - This dynasty was founded by Krishna Deva.
• Krishna Deva Raya (1509-30) was the greatest figure of this dynasty.
• Krishna Deva had not only to re-establish internal law and order, he had also to deal with the old rivals of Vijayanagara,
• In addition, he had to contend with the Portuguese whose power was slowly growing.
• Under Krishna Deva, Vijaynagara emerged as the strongest military power in the south.
• Paes, an Italian traveller, who spent a number of years at Krishna Deva's court, has given a glowing account of his personality.
• Krishna Deva was also a great builder.
• He built a new town near Vijayanagara called Nagalapuram after his mother and dug and enormous tank which was also used for irrigation purposes.
• He was a gifted scholar of Telugu and Sanskrit. Of his many works, only one in Telugu on polity and a drama in Sanskrit are available today.
• Krishnadeva Raya composed a work on statecraft in Telugu known as the
• Paes describes Krishnadeva Raya : "Of medium height, and of fair complexion and good figure, rather fat than thin; he has on his face signs of smallpox."
• He extended his patronage to Telugu, Kanada and Tamil poets alike.
• Foreign travellers like Barbosa, Paes and Nuniz speak of his efficient administration and the prosperity of the empire under his sway. The greatest achievement of Krishna Deva lay in the broad toleration that prevailed in his empire.
• Barbosa also pays a tribute to Krishna Deva for the justice and equity prevailing in his empire.
• Ultimately, in 1543, Sadashiva Raya ascended the throne and reigned till 1567.
• But the real power lay in the hands of a triumvirate in which the leading person was Rama Raja. Rama Raja was able to play off the various Muslim powers against one another.
• He entered into a commercial treaty with the Portuguese whereby the supply of horses to the Bijapur ruler was stopped.
• At length, they combined to inflict a crushing defeat on Vijayanagara at Bannihatti, near Talikota, in 1565.
• This is also called the battle of Talikota or the battle of Rakshasa-Tangadi.
• The battle of Bannihatti is generally considered to mark the end of the great age of Vijayanagara.
• The kingdom was divided into rajyas or mandalam (provinces) below which were nadu (district), sthala (subdistrict) and grama (village).
• The Chola traditions of village self-government were considerably weakened under Vijayanagara ruler.
• The growth of hereditary nayakships tended to curb their freedom and initiative.
• Parados - The currency of Vijaynagar was called parados.
• The king also granted amaram or territory with a fixed revenue to military chiefs.
• These chiefs, who were called palaiyagar (palegar) or nayaks, had to maintain a fixed number of foot soldiers, horses and elephants for the service of the state.
• The sixteenth-century Russian traveller, Nikitin, says : "The land is overstocked with people, but those in the country are very miserable while the nobles are extremely affluent and delight in luxury."
• Vijayanagara or "city of victory" was the name of both a city and an empire.
• Although it fell into ruin in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, it lived on in the memories of people living in the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab.
• They remembered it as Hampi, a name derived from that of the local mother goddess, Pampadevi. These oral traditions combined with archaeological finds, monuments and inscriptions and other records helped scholars to rediscover the Vijayanagara Empire.

The Discovery of Hampi

• The ruins at Hampi were brought to light in 1800 by an engineer and antiquarian named Colonel Colin Mackenzie, an employee of the English East India Company.
• Much of the initial information he received was based on the memories of priests of the Virupaksha temple and the shrine of Pampadevi.

Colin Mackenzie

• Born in 1754, Colin Mackenzie became famous as an engineer, surveyor and cartographer. In 1815 he was appointed the first Surveyor General of India.
• He embarked on collecting local histories and surveying historic sites in order to better understand India's past and make governance of the colony easier.

The Architectural Splendour of Hampi

• Hampi is located in the Krishna-Tungabhadra basin.
• The magnificent ruins at Hampi reveal a well-fortified city. No mortar or cementing agent was used in the construction of these walls and the technique followed was to wedge them together by interlocking.
• In its heyday in the fifteenthsixteenth centuries, Hampi bustled with commercial and cultural activities. Moors (a name used collectively for Muslim merchants), Chettis and agents of European traders such as the Portuguese, thronged the markets of Hampi.

Kings and traders

• As warfare during these times depended upon effective cavalry, the import of horses from Arabia and Central Asia was very important for rival kingdoms. This trade was initially controlled by Arab traders. Local communities of merchants known as kudirai chettis or horse merchants also participated in these exchanges.
• From 1498 Portuguese appeared on the scene. Their superior military technology, especially the use of muskets, enabled them to become important players in the tangled politics.
• Vijayanagara was also noted for its markets dealing in spices, textiles and precious stones.

The rayas and the nayakas

• Among those who exercised power in the empire were military chiefs who usually controlled forts and had armed supporters. These chiefs often moved from one area to another, and in many cases were accompanied by peasants looking for fertile land on which to settle.
• These chiefs were known as nayakas and they usually spoke Telugu or Kannada.
• The amara-nayaka system was a major political innovation of the Vijayanagara Empire.
• The amara-nayakas were military commanders who were given territories to govern by the raya. They collected taxes and other dues from peasants, craftspersons and traders.

Water resources

• The most striking feature about the location of Vijayanagara is the natural basin formed by the river Tungabhadra which flows in a north-easterly direction.
• The most important such tank was built in the early years of the fifteenth century and is now called Kalapuram tank. amaWater from this tank not only irrigated fields nearby but was also conducted through a channel to the "royal centre".
• One of the most prominent waterworks to be seen among the ruins is the Hiriya canal.
• This canal drew water from a dam across the Tungabhadra and irrigated the cultivated valley that separated the "sacred centre" from the "urban core". This was apparently built by kings of the Sangama dynasty.

Fortifications and roads

• Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador of Persia to Calicut (present-day Kozhikode) in the fifteenth century, was greatly impressed by the fortifications, and mentioned seven lines of forts.
• What was most significant about this fortification is that it enclosed agricultural tracts.
• Abdur Razzaq noted that "between the first, second and the third walls there are cultivated fields, gardens and houses".
• The arch on the gateway leading into the fortified settlement as well as the dome over the gate are regarded as typical features of the architecture introduced by the Turkish Sultans.
• Art historians refer to this style as Indo-Islamic, as it grew continually through interaction with local building practices in different regions.
• Archaeologists have studied roads within the city and those leading out from it. These have been identified by tracing paths through gateways, as well as by finds of pavements.
• Paes had written about a tank constructed by Krishnadeva Raya.

The mahanavami dibba

• The "king's palace" is the largest of the enclosures but has not yielded definitive evidence of being a royal residence. It has two of the most impressive platforms, usually called the "audience hall" and the "mahanavami dibba". The entire complex is surrounded by high double walls with a street running between them.
• Located on one of the highest points in the city, the "mahanavami dibba" is a massive platform rising from a base of about 11,000 sq. ft to a height of 40 ft. There is evidence that it supported a wooden structure. The base of the platform is covered with relief carvings.
• Rituals associated with the structure probably coincided with Mahanavami (literally, the great ninth day) of the ten-day Hindu festival during the autumn months of September and October, known variously as Dusehra (northern India), Durga Puja in Bengal) and Navaratri or Mahanavami (in peninsular India). The Vijayanagara kings displayed their prestige, power and suzerainty on this occasion.
• Paes had called the audience hall and the mahanavami dibba the “House of Victory”.

Other buildings in the royal centre

• One of the most beautiful buildings in the royal centre is the Lotus Mahal, so named by British travellers in the nineteenth century.
• While most temples were located in the sacred centre, there were several in the royal centre as well. One of the most spectacular of these is one known as the Hazara Rama temple.
• This was probably meant to be used only by the king and his family. The images in the central shrine are missing; however, sculpted panels on the walls survive. These include scenes from the Ramayana sculpted on the inner walls of the shrine.

The Sacred Centre: Choosing a capital

• According to local tradition, the rocky northern end of the city on the banks of the Tungabhadra sheltered the monkey kingdom of Vali and Sugriva mentioned m the Ramayana.
• Other traditions suggest that Pampadevi, the local mother goddess, did penance in these hills in order to marry Virupaksha, the guardian deity of the kingdom, also recognised as a form of Shiva. To this day this marriage is celebrated annually in the Virupaksha temple.
• Among these hills are found Jaina temples of the pre-Vijayanagara period as well. In other words, this area was associated with several sacred traditions.
• Temple building in the region had a long history, going back to dynasties such as the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas and Cholas. Rulers very often encouraged temple building as a means of associating themselves with the divine - often, the deity was explicitly or implicitly identified with the king.
• Temples also functioned as centres of learning. Besides, rulers and others often granted land and other resources for the maintenance of temples. Consequently, temples developed as significant religious, social, cultural and economic centres.
• From the point of view of the rulers, constructing, repairing and maintaining temples were important means of winning support and recognition for their power, wealth and piety.
• It is likely that the very choice of the site of Vijayanagara was inspired by the existence of the shrines of Virupaksha and Pampadevi.
• In fact the Vijayanagara kings claimed to rule on behalf of the god Virupaksha.
• All royal orders were signed "Shri Virupaksha^ usually in the Kannada script.

Gopurams and mandapas

• In terms of temple architecture, by this period certain new features were in evidence. These included structures of immense scale that must have been a mark of imperial authority, best exemplified by the raya gopurams or royal gateways that often dwarfed the towers on the central shrines, and signalled the presence of the temple from a great distance.
• The Virupaksha temple was built over centuries. While inscriptions suggest that the earliest shrine dated to the ninth-tenth centuries, it was substantially enlarged with the establishment of the Vijayanagara Empire.
• The hall in front of the main shrine was built by Krishnadeva Raya to mark his accession. This was decorated with delicately carved pillars. He is also credited with the construction of the eastern gopuram. These additions meant that the central shrine came to occupy a relatively small part of the complex.
• Another shrine, the Vitthala temple, is also interesting. Here, the principal deity was Vitthala, a form of Vishnu generally worshipped in Maharashtra.
• Just as the nayakas continued with and elaborated on traditions of fortification, so they did with traditions of temple building. In fact, some of the most spectacular gopurams were also built by the local nayakas.

The bazaar

• Paes gives a vivid description of the bazaar.
• According to Femao Nuniz, the Vijayanagara markets were "overflowing with abundance of fruits, grapes and oranges, limes, pomegranates, jackfruit and mangoes and all very cheap". Meat too was sold in abundance in the marketplaces.

Some Important Facts

• While historians use the term Vijayanagara Empire, contemporaries described it as the Karnataka samrajyamu.
• Amara is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word samara, meaning battle or war. It also resembles the Persian term amir, meaning a high noble.
• Swing pavilion is situated at Gingee.
• A beautiful statue of Krishnadeva Raya is placed on the gopuram of the temple at Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu.
• The rulers of Vijayanagara called themselves