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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1898.
her face and mouth. She at once began to regret being unable to live with a man whose blood was so very sweet! And on this Timmarasu rose up and gently approached her, and said that he would bring her back the king if she would promise him to behave very much better in the future. She remained petrified for some time, and when she grasped that it was the wasir who was standing before her, became very much abashed, and requested him to intercede on her behalf, and procure the king's pardon for her treachery. She further requested him to bring her back the king immediately. After making her swear fidelity Timmarasu went to an adjacent room where the king was lying concealed, narrated to him what had happened, fetched him thither, and took oaths from both of them that they should not bear any ill-will in future towards each other, blessed them, and went home. After this they lived happily together. That the king had two wives is ascertained from the Vishnuchittiya, a poetical work by the king himself.
When he set on his first campaign, he visited Simhachala, and made various grants of land to the temple there. This is proved by the inscription on the seventh pillar of the Simhachala temple, of which the following translation is culled from the local records of the District of Vizagapatam:
Blessings and greetings. Maharajâdhiraja Paramesvara Muru Rayara Ganda Adi Raya Vijaya Bhashege tappura Râyava Ganda Yavanarajyasamsthapanacharya Virapratapa Krishnadevamaharayalu, who is reigning at Vijayanagara, having come on his first campaign and subdued the fortresses of Udayagiri, Kondavidu, Kondapalli, Rajamahendri, etc., came to Simhadri and visited the place in S. S. 1438 on the twelfth day of the black fortnight of the month of Chaitra of the Dhâtu year and for the salvation of his mother Nâgâdêvamma and his father Narasaraya, gave to God one necklace of 991 pearls, a pair of diamond bangles, a padaka of sankha and chakra, one gold plate of 2,000 pagoda weight, and through his wife Chinnadevamma, a gold padaka of 500 pagoda weight and one of a similar weight through his other wife Tirumaladevamma.
There are a good many stanzas in the Manucharitra and Parijdtápaharana illustrative of Krishnadevaraya's conquests, which need not be quoted here.
Three years elapsed between Krishnaraya's first campaign and his second, which interval was spent by him in conversations and discussions with the chief literati of the day. It was during this time that Nandi Timmana prepared his Párijátúpaharaṣa and Allasani Peddans his Svarochisha Manucharitra, and dedicated it to the king between 1516 and 1520. We are led to infer this, as in neither of the two works mention is anywhere made of his fight with the Muhammadan sovereigns of Bijapur in 1519 and of his complete victory over 'Adil Khân in 1520, whereas the event finds a poetic expression in Krishnaraya's Amuktamalyada or Vishnuchittiya, from which we infer that the latter work must have been composed by the king after 1520.
His South-Indian empire embraced a vast extent of country, including Golconda and Worangal. He was by far the best of the South-Indian emperors. He had all the elements of greatnessprudence, activity, and courage in a great degree. His success in arms had gained him the highest military reputation, while the good order that prevailed in his kingdom, notwithstanding his frequent absence from it, proves his talents for government. It is said of him that he never fought a battle that he did not win, nor besiege a town that he did not take. But though great as a warrior, be was greater as a scholar and a patron of letters, and his fame rests more on the large sums of money he gave to learned men than on the conquests he made, which marked him out as a liberal supporter of literature and the arts. He subjugated the Gajapatis of Orissa, the Moslem Asvapatis, and the Telugu Narapatis, and received the title of Mururayara Ganda, a Kanarese appelation meaning "the husband of three Râyas or kings." He had many such titles. He built a dam over the Tungabhadra near Vijayanagara.
7 [For a different explanation of the title Maru-raya see Bouth-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 111, note 8, - V, V.]
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