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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
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captured and slain, and when owing to the flight of Raja Ram to Ginji, the war with the Marathas was extended to the South, that the emperor thought seriously of the completion of his conquests in the South. Ranga Krishna's position, in consequence, was, during the last two years of his rule, a dangerous one. He had to keep strict vigilance against possible imperial vandalism. He had to see that his kingdom did not share the fate of the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golcondah. He had to be singularly vigilant in the northwest frontier, for in 1687 the Mysore king, Chikka Dêva Raj, purchased the District of Bangalore from Ekoji (who thus confined himself solely to Tanjore), for three lakhs ; and when Kasim Khan, the Mughul general, seized it before the entry of the Mysore troops, he conciliated the emperor, and concluded, in return for the payment of allegiance, an agreement by which he got Bangalore, as well as a tacit permission to extend his territories in a direction that would not interfere with the Mughul operations. The friendship of the emperor assured, Chicka Dêva was ready to encroach into Madura territory. In 1688 and 168928 we find him invading the Kongu province, conquering the greater part of Baramahal, including Dharmapuri and Kaveripatnam, pushing his conquest into the Talaghat and annexing Omalûr, Paramatti and Attûr-Anantagiri. This region had been previously conquered by Dodda Dêva in 1667, but evidently recovered by Madura or by the local chiefs and Polygars. Hence the necessity of Chikka Dêva to subdue it. We have no authority which enables us to say what Ranga Krishna did at this crisis. Probably, he yielded for the time and died before taking any steps to recover the lost districts.
The incident of the Mughal's slipper.
But if Ranga Krishna could not take any steps against Mysore, he was able enough to defy the power of the haughty Musalman. A curious and highly interesting episode is narrated in the Telugu chronicle in illustration of his dignified attitude towards Muhammadan claims. It was the Padshah's custom in those days, it says, to send one of his slippers in great eclat with and in the midst of proper guards and solemn paraphernalia, as a mandate for the performance of homage and the payment of tribute by the feudatories of the Empire. The slipper was placed in a rich and magnificent howdah of an elephant, and defended by an army of 12,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, under the command of two Nawabs. All the honours were paid to the royal slipper which were paid to the king himself.
It was fanned by two chowries, and attended by banners and umbrellas, flutes and drums, and other insignia. When the procession reached the boundary of a State, the king of that State was bound to welcome it at the head of his troops, pay homage, and abase his ensigns before it. The king was then bound to take the imperial representative and its defenders to the capital, to resign his throne for a moment to it, and to give as a mark of his loyalty, obeisance and tribute, besides presents to the guardians of the worthy imperial representative! This custom, a capital example of the pride and slavery of kings, had not, however, extended, owing to distance, to "the Pandya kingdom"; but in the reign of Ranga Krishna, the imperial slipper, with all its insignia, came to the frontiers of the Madura kingdom at Uṭṭattûr, and despatched the inayithu nâma, the news of its arrival, to the king. When the young and proud king of Trichinopoly heard the purport of the message and the claim for homage on his part, his indignation knew no bounds. He dismissed
2 Wilks I, 92; Salem Manual I, 53-4.
