Epigraphia Indica Vol 15

Author(s): Sten Konow, F W Thomas
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 22

No. 2.) SRISAILAM PLATES OF VIRUPAKSHA: SAKA-SAMVAT 1388.
11
was able to maintain his position against the Musalmans, he could have induced his master Ballala to reside in his capital Dvarasamudra, which is situated at a distance of some days' anarch from Vijayanagara. There appears to be a greater likelihood of the brothers Harihara and Bukka having helped the Musalmans in order first to gain the Karnāta kingdom for them and then to usarp it for themselves, as the Rajukalanirnaya has it. Ferishta is certainly wrong, when he says that Beejanagar existed long before Harihara is said to have constructed it; for, inscriptions uniformly mention the fact that the early kings of Vijayanagara were ruling at Hosapattana, the new city, which could be no other than Vijayanagara, their hafepatana (old city and residence) being Anegundi.
Again Vidyåraṇya, who rose to prominence only in the reigns of Bukka I kod his son Harihara II, cannot be the person who advised Harihara I to construct the city of Vijayanagara. It was more likely at the advice of Vidyaranya's guru Vidyātirtha that Harihara I built the city of Vidyānagara.?
A fatile attempt was made by Mr. Venkayya to trace the origin of the Vijayanagara dynasty. Harihara II had a son named Virāpiksha. In certain inscriptions and in the Sanskrit drama called the Narāyanivilasa the latter is said to be the son of Harihara II by his queen Malla-dēvi, who is said to be the daughter of a Rama-dēva, whom Mr. Venkayya identifies with the Devagiri Yadava king Rima-dova, inferring that, having strengthened his friendship with the Dēvagiri king by this marriage, Harihara I then established the Vijayanagara kingdon. Ramachandra of Dövagiri lived between S. 1193 and 1231 ; Harihara II, one of the younger sons of Bukka I, reigued between $. 1298 and 1326, just about a hundred years after Ramachandra. Consequently, the surmise is quite unjustifiable.
If we can believe the two documents referred to at the beginning, and there does not appear anything substantial against their genuineness, Harihara I was crowned in . 1258. So far as we know, the latest date of his reign is S. 1268, which is also the date of the earliest inscriptions of Bakka I. So he mast have reigned for ten years. His first younger brother, Kampa I, had predeceased him somo time before s. 1268.3 He was governing the eastern portion of the kingdom and held the title "the lord of the eastorn and the western oceans." His son, Sangama II, succeeded him in the capacity of governor of the eastern quarters under Bukka I, who by virtue of his seniority ascended the throne of Vijayanagara after the demise of Harihara I.
The reign of Bukka I is the most eventful one in the history of the first dynasty of Vijayanagara. During Harihara's reign the kingdom was of comparatively small extent. Owing to the splendid campaigns of prince Kampaņa, the elder (or II) son of Bukka I, the Muļbagal province was first conquered in S. 1282; immediately, in the year $. 1283, followed the reduction and subjugation of the kingdom of the Dravida king, of the Sambava-Rayar dynasty which ruled over practically the whole of 'Condai-mandalam with either Padaividu or Virinchiparam as its capital. In the year $. 1293 the alusalman settlements near Srirangam (more precisely at Samayavaram, otherwise known as Kaņganār) and at Madura were destroyed and the kingdom extended as far south as Madura; that is, the kingdoin assumed now au imperial size. "No. 18 of 1899 (of the Madras Epigraphist's Collection), which is dated in Saka-Samvat 1287 (= A.D. 1365-66), reports that Kainpaņa Udaiyar, son of Bukkana Udaiyar, became permanent on his throne after taking possession of the Räjagambhira rajya.'” Mr. Venkayya attempts, in his Annual Report on Epigraphy for the year 1899, to identify the Räjagambhira rajya with the Påndya country, one of whose prominent kings was Jaţāvarman Kulasekhara Pandya, surnamed
See R. Narasimhacharya's paper entitle. Madhavacharya and his younger brothers, Ind. Ant., Vol. XLV, pp. 17 ff. ? Ep. An. Rep. for 1899, p. 22, para. 55.
See the introduction to Madhuravijaya, P. 32.
B 2