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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1916
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA. BY'V. RANGACHARI, M.A., L.T., MADRAS.
(Continued from p. 188.)
Golconda's attack on the rebels themselves. The Muhammadans had by this time brought the Northern provinces of the Chandragiri Raj under their oppressive weight, and they wanted to bring the feudatory states also to recognise their power. With characteristic ingratitude they turned against the very princes who had courted their alliance and invited their invasion. In their thirst for conquest, they forgot past friendships, and pointed their destructive course towards the kingdoms of Ginji, Tanjore and Madura. It seems that this unexpected movement paralysed the activities of the Naiks and threw them into a state of despair from which they did not recover till too late. Even Tirumal Naik was so much taken by surprise that he was unequal to the task of organising a defence. The Golcondah troops, in consequence, casily swept away the historic region between the Javadi hills and the Seven Pagodas, the region containing the renowned cities of Arcot and Arni, Conjeovaram and Wandiwash, and assembled at the foot of the impregnable walls of Ginji. Vijaya Raghava Naik was the first to yield. More selfish than brave, he realily acknowledged the supremacy of Golconda in place of Chandragiri and bound himself to pay tribute. The submission of Tanjore had a most unfortunate consequonce. Tirumal lost the little heart he had, and in his alarm that, after Ginji, the turn of Madura would follow, he repeated the blunder he had once committed. A wise stateman in his place would have, in case he was not able singly to meet the enemy, concluded a defensive league with Kanthirava of Mysore. Race, religion, and interest pointed to such a step. But Tirumal wis incapable of it. He sought the alliance of an enemy of Mysore, the Sultan of Bijapur, on the ground that he was politically an enemy of Golconda. We do not know on what terms he concluded this alliance. Indeed it is doubtful whether it was an alliance between equal sovereigns or an agreement between a suzerain and a feudatory. We may believe that, as Tirumal was acting against the demanded dominance of Golconda, he refused in his agreement with Bijapur to recognise himself as subordinato chief, that he concluded his alliance in the capacity of an equal s) vereign. But even supposing that it was so, Tirumal must have perceived that he was playing with a double-edged sworil. He must have perceived that Bijapur might have more solicitude for religion than for politics, that there was always a greater tendency for even deadly rivals among the Muhammadans to unite than to help the Hindus against some Muhammadan power. He might have realised that, however deadly were the rivalries among the Musalman powers, these were likely to suppress them and combine together as against the Hindu. The policy of setting the Muhammadan against Muhammadan was wise, if accomplished outside his kingdom; but the present move of Tirumal Naik would only convert his kingdom into a theatre of war between foreigners, and subject his subjects to the evils of war. It would reduce him, in other words, from the position of a ruler to that of a partisan. It would moreover widen the gulf between Mysore and Macura.
Tirumal Naik was blind to all this, but it was not long before he had to see that, his mastery in his kingdom gone, his people in misery, and his prestige shaken, the greatest onomy he and his kingdom had was himself.
