Indian Antiquary Vol 43

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 48

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1914.
gathered round his magic name. Numerous are the tales, embodying facts as well as fictions, with which poets and writers have, for centuries, loved to associate his beloved person. Poets have praised his poetic genius, scholars have admired his scholarship, kings his kingcraft, priests his piety, artists his taste, and the historian his towering personality in the history of Hindu civilization. Even to children his name possesses a charm. The hero of a hundred nursery tales, he is, with his friend and "father," Sâļuva Timma?: Appâji, their friend, their companion and their hero. Even to-day when the round of tales goes around the domestic hearth of the Hindu home, when the children, old or young, gather around the smiling old man and cry for the good old stories, heard perhaps scores of times, of the beloved * Raya", and of the more beloved " Appaji," what a sunshine is there in their faces ! how poignant their grief when the son of Nagala was condemned by his cruel brother to be deprived of his eyes! What joy when he was saved by Appâji and the eyes of sheep were presented to the tyrant ! How interested when the great emperor's personal habits, his gymnastic exercises, and his morning pursuits are narrated ! Krishna Deva Raya, in short, is the national hero of the Andhras, and more than any other sovereign, made the Telugu sovereignty over south India a reality. Immediately after his accession, he adopted effectual measures to reimpose the yoke of the empire on those who had defied 2n its standard. He first reduced the powerful Ummathûr chiefs of the Mysore-Kongu marches, who, as we have already seen, had grown turbulent in the time of Vira Narasimha, The pride of the Gajapatia was then humbled ; not only were the fortresses of Udayagiri and Kondavidu once again brought under Vijayanagar, but the Gajapati dominions invaded, and the Gajapati king had to humbly acknowledge the supremacy of Vijayanagar. The king of Orissa then felt the puissant arms of the great emperor, and a pillar of victory in the heart of the Kalinga country remained, ever after, a melancholy reminder of the military aggression of the Telugu over the Uriya ; and when the defeated chieftain was compelled to give his daughter27 in marriage to the conqueror, he had to rue the proud and indiscriminate contempt in which he had held the family and powers of his adversary.
Krishna Deva Raya's foreign Policy. An even more successful exploit of Krishna Deva was the conquest of the Raichûr duab29 from the Muhammaclan, and the invasion and occupation of Bijapur itself. The country of the 'Adil Shah was overrun, the fortress of Kalbarga 29 was destroyed, and the Vijayanagar emperor found himself the arbitrator in the internal politics of Bijapûr and Ahmadnagar. Never before had the enemies of Vijayanagar trembled so much as in the days of Krishna Deva and never had Vijayanagar ruled over such an extensive territory.30 While the emperor was engaged in these exploits in the north almost throughout his reign, he did not forget the comparatively tranquil South.
His power strongly felt throughout the empire. Here, there was no corner of the extensive land which stretched from sea to sea and from the Krishna to the Cape which escaped his vigilant control. The large number
24 For a connected account of this celebrated man, based on epigraphical records, see Aich. Suru. 1908.09, p. 183. The literature concerning him and his activities is legion.
25 Ep. Ind. III p. 17-22, Mukku Timmanna Pärijala paharana refers to this campaign a which ended in the capture of Sivasamudram; the Muhammadan historians. also refer to it.
26 All the epigraphical and other authorities in connexion with this have been ably cited by Mr. Krishna Sastri in Arch. Surv. Rep. 1908-09, pp. 176-179.
ZT Arch, Surv. 1908.9, p. 179 based on inscription and Telugu and Tamil literature.
28. See Sewell's Forgotten Empire for an elaborate discussion of the date of the Raichur siege and capture. (1520 A. D.); Insc. 47 of 1906; Ep. Rep. 1907; Nuniz account ; Scott's Dekkan I, 239-40
29 The poem imukta Malydda. 30 Soe Wilson's Des. Catal. of Mack. MSS., 1882, p. 87.