Indian Antiquary Vol 51

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

Page 216

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[NOVEMBER, 1922
about 1311 A.D. Soon afterwards Vira Pandya drove him out of Madura, and he is said to have sought refuge with the Delhi monarch, 'Alâu'ddin Khilji. More probably he joined the advancing Muslim army. Anyhow, this civil war was Malik Kâfûr's opportunity.
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Still in 1310, Malik Kâfûr started for Ma'abar with his usual skill in conducting a march, Vira Pandya fleeing before him. Malik Kâfür committed all kinds of atrocities en route to Madura and devastated the country in a manner still remembered after 600 years, making his rendezvous for a time at Kannanûr, near Srirangam, whence he sought and utterly des troyed the rich temple of Brahmastpuri, which Professor Krishnaswami cleverly shows to have been Chidambaram. Srirangam and other temples naturally suffered. At Kannanûr Malik Kâfûr found some of the local mixed Musulmâns already alluded to, whom he spared because they could repeat the Kalima. Madura was found empty and sacked, and the raid continued as far as Râmeśvaram itself. In 1311, or early in 1312, Malik Kâfûr returned with all his booty to Delhi. From that time till 1316, when 'Alâu'ddîn died, the land had peace.
In this great raid Malik Kâfür's route is not easy to follow, owing to the almost unlimited corruption of Dravidian place-names by Muhammadan authors, but Professor Krishnaswami's identifications, actual or probable, are scholarly and admirably thorough and painstaking.
On his return to Delhi, Malik Kâfûr became all powerful under 'Alâu'ddin Khilji for the short and disastrous remainder of that monarch's reign, and at his death in 1316, he became so atrocious a tyrant that he was assassinated in less than two-months. Then followed an unstable government in Delhi, and the Southern provinces acquired by Malik Kâfûr's generalship naturally fell away. Deogiri and Warangal ceased to send tribute; the Keralas of Travancore and the Pandyas of Madura struggled for supremacy in Ma'abar, regardless of any garrison Malik Kâfûr may have left behind him in Madura, while Dwârasamudra was actually rebuilt by the Hoysalas. Apparently all that Malik Kâfûr had achieved was only a raid of no political effect.
The real successor of 'Alâu'ddin Khilji was Kutbu'ddîn Mubarak Shâh, who began well but soon neglected his administration and, just as 'Alâu'ddîn had done before him, put himself into the hands of another renegade eunuch slave, this time from Gujarât, to whom he gave the title of Khusra Khân and raised him to the office of wazir with, in the confusing Muhammadan fashion, the title of Malik Naib Kâfûr. This new Imperial favourite largely repeated the acts of Malik Kâfür till his own assassination in 1320, and so it will be convenient to distinguish him, as I have done before, by the title of Malik Khusra.
In the circumstances, it became necessary to reconquer the South. In 1318 Mubarak Shah marched on Deogiri, defeated Harapâla Deo, then ruler, and flayed him alive. This was the first real conquest in the Dakhan, ending in the appointment of Musalmân feudatories in Mahârâshtra. It seems that the real fighting commander of this expedition was Malik Khusrû, and after it he was sent to invest Rudra Deo in Warangal. Here he faithfully repeated the proceedings of Malik Kâfûr, plundered the Chief of everything, and left him to rule as a vassal of Delhi. He had then to return to Delhi to help to put down rebellion, which he did with such savagery and so much for his own advancement that one Muhammadan chronicler dubbed him "a low designing schemer."
Returning to the South, he repeated Malik Kâfûr's raid in Ma'abar without much opposition, showing his want of scruple in one instance by robbing Taki Khân, a rich Sunni (? Labbai) and putting him to death. Returning once more to Delhi, he requited bis master's infatuation for him by assassinating him, with the help of his own countrymen from Gujarat, and proclaiming himself Sultan with the title of Nasiru'ddin Shah. Malik Khusra's next