A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar
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"Echama Naique, seeing that this stratagem had failed, bribed heavily a captain of five hundred men who were in the fortress to slay the guards as soon as some good occasion offered, and to rescue the King. This man, who was called Iteobleza,[362] finding one day that Jaga Raya was leaving the palace with all his men in order to receive a certain chief who had proffered his submission, and that there only remained in the fortress about five thousand men, in less than an hour slew the guards, seized three gates, and sent a message to Echama Naique telling him to come at once and seize the fortress. But Jaga Raya was the more expeditious; he returned with all his forces, entered by a postern gate, of the existence of which Iteobleza had not been warned, and put to death the captain and his five hundred followers.
"Enraged at this attempt, Jaga Raya, to strengthen the party of his nephew, resolved to slay the King and all his family. He entrusted this business to a brother of his named Chinaobraya,[363] ordering him to go to the palace and tell the poor King that he must slay himself, and that if he would not he himself would kill him with stabs of his dagger.
"The prisoner attempted to excuse himself, saying that he knew nothing of the attempted revolt. But seeing the determination of Chinaobraya, who told him that he must necessarily die, either by his own hand or by that of another -- a most pitiful case, and one that I relate full of sorrow! -- the poor King called his wife, and after he had spoken to her awhile he beheaded her. Then he sent for his youngest son and did the same to him. He put to death similarly his little daughter. Afterwards he sent for his eldest son, who was already married, and commanded him to slay his wife, which he did by beheading her. This done, the King took a long sword of four fingers' breadth, and, throwing himself upon it, breathed his last; and his son, heir to the throne, did the same to himself in imitation of his father. There remained only a little daughter whom the King could not bring himself to slay; but Chinaobraya killed her, so that none of the family should remain alive of the blood royal, and the throne should be secured for his nephew.
"Some of the chiefs were struck with horror at this dreadful deed, and were so enraged at its cruelty that they went over to Echama Naique, resolved to defend the prince who had been rescued by the washerman, and who alone remained of all the royal family. Echama Naique, furious at this shameful barbarity and confident in the justice of his cause, selected ten thousand of his best soldiers, and with them offered battle to Jaga Raya, who had more than sixty thousand men and a number of elephants and horses. Echama sent him a message in this form: -- 'Now that thou hast murdered thy king and all his family, and there alone remains this boy whom I rescued from thee and have in my keeping, come out and take the field with all thy troops; kill him and me, and then thy nephew will be secure on the throne!'
"Jaga Raya tried to evade this for some time; but finding that Echama Naique insisted, he decided to fight him, trusting that with so great a number of men he would easily not only be victorious, but would be able to capture both Echama Naique and the prince. He took the field, therefore, with all his troops. Echama Naique entrusted the prince to a force of ten thousand men who remained a league away, and with the other ten thousand he not only offered battle, but was the first to attack; and that with such fury and violence that Jaga Raya, with all the people surrounding his nephew, was driven to one side, leaving gaps open to the enemy, and many met their deaths in the fight. Echama Naique entered in triumph the tents of Jaga Raya, finding in them all the royal insignia belonging to the old King and these he delivered to the young prince, the Son of Chica Raya, proclaiming him rightful heir and King of all the empire of Bisnaga.
"The spoil which he took was very large, for in precious stones alone they say that he found two millions worth.
"After this victory many of the nobles joined themselves to Echama Naique. So much so, that in a short time he had with him fifty thousand fighting men in his camp; while Jaga Raya, with only fifteen thousand, fled to the jungles. Here, however, he was joined by more people, so that the war has continued these two years,[364] fortune favouring now one side now the other. But the party of the young prince has always been gaining strength; the more so because, although the great Naique of Madura[365] -- a page of the betel to the King of Bisnaga, who pays a revenue every year of, some say, 600,000 pagodas, and has under him many kings and nobles as vassals, such as he of Travancor -- took the side of Jaga Raya, and sustained him against the Naique of Tanjaor. Yet the latter, though not so powerful, is, with the aid of the young King, gradually getting the upper hand. Indeed there are now assembled in the field in the large open plains of Trinchenepali[366] not only the hundred thousand men that each party has, but as many as a million of soldiers.
"Taking advantage of these civil wars, the city of San Thome[367] -- which up to now belonged to the King of Bisnaga, paying him revenues and customs which he used to make over to certain chiefs, by whom the Portuguese were often greatly troubled determined to liberate itself, and become in everything and for everything the property of the King of Portugal. To this end she begged the Viceroy to send and take possession of her in the name of his Majesty, which he did, as I shall afterwards tell you. Meanwhile the captain who governed the town, by name Manuel de Frias, seeing that there was close to the town a fortress that commanded it, determined to seize it by force, seeing that its captain declined to surrender it. So he laid siege to it, surrounding it so closely that no one could get out."
In the end the Portuguese were successful. The fortress was taken, its garrison of 1500 men capitulated, and a fleet came round by sea to complete the conquest.
The foregoing story relates to events never before, I think, made known to English readers, and so far is of the highest interest. Let us, for the moment, grant its accuracy, and read it by the light of the genealogical table already given.[368]
King Venkata I. (1586 -- 1614) had a sister who was married to a chief whom Barradas calls "Obo" (perhaps Obala) Raya. So far as we know, his only nephews were Tirumala II. and Ranga III., sons of his brother, Rama III. Since Tirumala II. appears to have had no sons, and Ranga III. had a son, Rama IV, who is asserted in the inscriptions to have been "one of several brothers," it is natural to suppose that the nephew mentioned by Barradas, who was raised to be king on the death of the old King Venkata I. in 1614, and who had three sons, was Ranga III., called "Chikka Raya" or "Crown-prince" in the text. He, then, succeeded in 1614, but was afterwards deposed, imprisoned, and compelled to take his own life. His eldest son at the same time followed his example, and his youngest son was slain by his father. The "middle son" escaped, and was raised to the throne by a friendly chief named Echama Naik. This second son was probably Ranga IV. Two of King Venkata's wives were Bayama, daughter of Jaga Raya, and a lady unnamed, sister of Narpa Raya. A niece of Venkata I. had been given in marriage to a Brahman boy, who had been surreptitiously introduced into the palace by Bayama and educated in the pretence that he was son of King Venkata. The plot to raise him to the throne was temporarily successful, and Ranga III. and all the royal family were killed, saving only Ranga IV., who afterwards came to the throne.
How much of the story told is true we cannot as yet decide; but it is extremely improbable that the whole is a pure invention, and we may for the present accept it, fixing the date of these occurrences as certainly between the years 1614 and 1616 A.D. -- the date of Barradas's letter being December 12 in the latter year.
It will be observed that the inscriptions upon which the genealogical table given above, from the Epigraphia Indica, is founded do not yield any date between A.D. 1614 and 1634, when Pedda Venkata II. is named as king. In 1883 I published[369] a list of Vijayanagar names derived from reports of inscriptions which had then reached me. I am by no means certain of their accuracy, and it is clear that they must all be hereafter carefully examined. But so far as it goes the list runs thus: --
A.D. Ranga 1619 Rama 1620, 1622 Ranga 1623 Venkata1623 Rama 1629 Venkata1636
The last-mentioned name and date
are apparently correct.
In 1633 the Portuguese, encouraged by the Vijayanagar king, still at Chandragiri, attempted to eject the Dutch from "Paleacate," or Pulicat. An arrangement was made by which the Portuguese were to attack by sea and the Rajah by land; but while the Viceroy sent his twelve ships as agreed on, the Rajah failed to attack, alleging in explanation that he was compelled to use his army to put down internal disturbances in the kingdom. A second expedition met with no better success, the plans of the Portuguese being again upset by the non fulfilment of the king's part of the bargain. On the departure of the fleet the king did attack the Dutch settlement, but was bought off by a large payment, and the Hollanders remained subsequently undisturbed.
Senhor Lopes tells me that he has found in the National Archives in the Torre do Tombo, amongst the "Livros das Moncoes," a number of papers bearing on this subject. The most interesting are those contained in Volume xxxiv. (fol. 91 -- 99). These were written by the Captain-General of Meliapor (St. Thome), by Padre Pero Mexia of the Company of Jesus, and by the Bishop; and amongst the other documents are to be seen translations of two palm-leaf letters written by the king of Vijayanagar, then at Vellore. It appears from these that the king was devoid of energy, and that one Timma Raya had revolted against him.
We know that in 1639 the king of Vijayanagar was named Ranga or Sri-Ranga, and that he was at that time residing at Chandragiri; because in that year Mr. Day, the head of the English trading station a Madras, obtained from the king a grant of land at that place, one mile broad by five miles long, on which Fort St. George was afterwards constructed. The country about Madras was then ruled over by a governor or Naik, and so little heed did he pay to the wishes or commands of his titular sovereign, that although the Raya had directed that the name of the new town should be "Srirangarayalapatnam" ("city of Sri Ranga Raya"), the Naik christened it after the name of his own father, Chenna, and called it "Chennapatnam," by which appellation it has ever since been known to the Hindus. Such, at least, is the local tradition. This king was probably the Ranga VI. of the Epigraphia list, mentioned as living in 1644 A.D.
After this date my (doubtful and unexamined) inscriptions yield the following names and dates: --
A.D. Ranga 1643, 1647, 1655, 1662, 1663, 1665, 1667, 1678 Venkata 1678, 1680 Ranga 1692 Venkata 1706 Ranga 1716 Mahadeva 1724 Ranga 1729 Venkata 1732 Rama 1739 (?) Venkata 1744 Venkata 1791, 1792, 1793
From Sir Thomas Munro's papers I gather that the territory about the old family estate of Anegundi was early in the eighteenth century held by the Rayas from the Mogul emperor of Delhi as a tributary state. In 1749 it was seized by the Mahrattas, and in 1775 it was reduced by Haidar Ali of Mysore, but continued to exist as a tributary quasi-independent state till the time of Tipu (Tippoo Sultan).
Tipu, who never suffered from an excess of compunction or compassion when his own interests were at stake, annexed the estate bodily to his dominions in 1786. Thirteen years later he was killed at Seringapatam, and in the settlement that followed the little territory was made over to the Nizam of Haidarabad, the English Government retaining all lands on their side of the Tungabhadra. Partly in compensation for this loss of land the Government has till very recently paid an annual pension to the head of the Anegundi family. This has now been abolished.
Chronicles of Paes and Nuniz
Letter
(? to the historian Barros) which accompanied the Chronicles when sent from India to Portugal about the year 1537 A.D.
Since I have lived till now in this city (? Goa), it seemed necessary to do what your Honour desired of me, namely, to search for men who had formerly been in Bisnaga; for I know that no one goes there without bringing away his quire of paper written about its affairs. Thus I obtained this summary from one Domingos Paes, who goes there, and who was at Bisnaga in the time of Crisnarao when Cristovao de Figueiredo was there. I obtained another from Fernao Nuniz, who was there three years trading in horses (which did not prove remunerative). Since one man cannot tell everything -- one relating some things which another does not -- I send both the summaries made by them, namely, one in the time of Crisnarao, as I have said, and the other sent from there six months since. I desire to do this because your honour can gather what is useful to you from both, and because you will thus give the more credit to some things in the chronicle of the kings of Bisnaga, since they conform one to the other. The copy of the summary which he began to make[370] when he first went to the kingdom of Bisnaga is as follows: --
Narrative of Domingos Paes
(written probably A.D. 1520 -- 22)
Of the things which I saw and contrived to learn concerning the kingdom of Narsimga, etc.[371]
On leaving India[372] to travel towards the kingdom of Narsymga from the sea-coast, you have (first) to pass a range of hills (serra), the boundary of the said kingdom and of those territories which are by the sea. This serra runs along the whole of the coast of India, and has passes by which people enter the interior; for all the rest of the range is very rocky and is filled with thick forest. The said kingdom has many places on the coast of India; they are seaports with which we are at peace, and in some of them we have factories, namely, Amcola, Mirgeo, Honor, Batecalla, Mamgalor, Bracalor, and Bacanor. And as soon as we are above this serra we have a plain country in which there are no more ranges of hills, but only a few mountains, and these small ones; for all the rest is like the plains of Ssantarem.[373] Only on the road from Batecala[374] to a town called Zambuja, there are some ranges with forests; nevertheless the road is very even. From Batecala to this town of Zambur[375] is forty leagues; the road has many streams of water by its side, and because of this so much merchandise flows to Batecala that every year there come five or six thousand pack-oxen.
Now to tell of the aforesaid kingdom. It is a country sparsely wooded except along this serra on the east,[376] but in places you walk for two or three leagues under groves of trees; and behind cities and towns and villages they have plantations of mangoes, and jack-fruit trees, and tamarinds and other very large trees, which form resting-places where merchants halt with their merchandise. I saw in the city of Recalem[377] a tree under which we lodged three hundred and twenty horses, standing in order as in their stables, and all over the country you may see many small trees. These dominions are very well cultivated and very fertile, and are provided with quantities of cattle, such as cows, buffaloes, and sheep; also of birds, both those belonging to the hills and those reared at home, and this in greater abundance than in our tracts. The land has plenty of rice and Indian-corn, grains, beans, and other kind of crops which are not sown in our parts; also an infinity of cotton. Of the grains there is a great quantity, because, besides being used as food for men, it is also used for horses, since there is no other kind of barley; and this country has also much wheat, and that good. The whole country is thickly populated with cities and towns and villages; the king allows them to be surrounded only with earthen walls for fear of their becoming too strong. But if a city is situated at the extremity of his territory he gives his consent to its having stone walls, but never the towns; so that they may make fortresses of the cities but not of the towns.
And because this country is all flat, the winds blow here more than in other parts. The oil which it produces comes from seeds sown and afterwards reaped, and they obtain it by means of machines which they make. This country wants water because it is very great and has few streams; they make lakes in which water collects when it rains, and thereby they maintain themselves. They maintain themselves by means of some in which there are springs better than by others that have only the water from rain; for we find many quite dry, so that people go about walking in their beds, and dig holes to try and find enough water, even a little, for their maintenance. The failure of the water is because they have no winter as in our parts and in (Portuguese) India, but only thunder-storms that are greater in one year than in another. The water in these lakes is for the most part muddy, especially in those where there are no
springs, and the reason why it is so muddy is because of the strong wind and the dust that is in this country, which never allows the water to be clear, and also because of the numbers of cattle, buffaloes, cows, oxen, and other small cattle that drink in them. For you must know that in this land they do not slaughter oxen or cows; the oxen are beasts of burden and are like sumpter-mules; these carry all their goods. They worship the cows, and have them in their pagodas made in stone, and also bulls; they have many bulls that they present to these pagodas, and these bulls go about the city without any one causing them any harm or loss. Further, there are asses in this country, but they are small, and they use them only for little things; those that wash clothes lay the cloths on them, and use them for this more than for anything else. You must know that this kingdom of Narsymga has three hundred graos of coast, each grao being a league, along the hill-range (serra) of which I have spoken, until you arrive at Ballagate and Charamaodel,[378] which belong to this kingdom; and in breadth it is one hundred and sixty-four graos; each large grao measures two of our leagues, so that it has six hundred leagues of coast, and across it three hundred and forty-eight leagues... across from Batacalla to the kingdom of Orya.[379]
And this kingdom marches[380] with all the territory of Bengal, and on the other side with the kingdom of Orya, which is to the east, and on the other side to the north with the kingdom of Dakhan, belonging to which are the lands which the Ydallcao[381] has, and Ozemelluco.[382] Goa is at war with this Ydallcao, because that city was his, and we have taken it from him.
And this kingdom of Orya, of which I have spoken above, is said to be much larger than the kingdom of Narsymga, since it marches with all Bengal, and is at war with her; and it marches with all the kingdom of Pegu and with the Mallaca Sea. It reaches to the kingdom of Cambaya, and to the kingdom of Dakhan; and they told me with positive certainty that it extends as far as Persia. The population thereof is light coloured, and the men are of good physique. Its king has much treasure and many soldiers and many elephants, for there are numbers of these in this country. (My informants) know this well, and they say that there is no ruler greater than he. He is a heathen.