第46章

Nuniz relates that at Udayagiri Krishna Raya captured an aunt of the king of Orissa and took her prisoner to Vijayanagar.He next proceeded against Kondavid,another very strong hill-fortress also in possession of the king of Orissa,where he met and defeated the king in person in a pitched battle,and captured the citadel after a two months'siege.He left Saluva Timma here as a governor of the conquered provinces,and went in pursuit of his enemy northwards.Nuniz says that Saluva Timma appointed his own brother captain of Kondavid,but an inion at that place gives us the name of this man as Nadendla Gopamantri,and calls him a nephew of Timma.Kondavid seems to have been under the kings of Orissa since A.D.1454;its capture by Krishna Deva took place in 1515.[206]To confirm our chronicler's account of the king's northward journey,I find that there is at the town of Meduru,twenty-two miles south-east of Bezvada on the Krishna,an inion which states that in 1516a battle took place there between Krishna Deva and some enemy whose name is obliterated,in which the former was victorious.

The king,advanced to Kondapalle,took the place after a three months'siege,and captured therein a wife and son of the king of Orissa.The unhappy fate of the latter is told in the chronicle.Thence he marched to Rajahmundry and halted six months.Peace was made shortly after,and Krishna Deva married a daughter of the Orissan king.[207]After this marriage King Krishna made an expedition against a place in the east which Nuniz calls "Catuir,"on the Coromandel side,and took it.I have been unable to locate this place.

By these conquests the whole of his eastern dominions were brought into entire subjection to the sovereign.

Nuniz writes as though the attack on Raichur immediately followed the campaign against Udayagiri,Kondavid,and "Catuir,"but,according to the evidence afforded by inions,these expeditions were at an end in 1515,and the battle of Raichur did not take place for at least five years later.

A long account of wars in the south-eastern Dakhan country between Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golkonda and his neighbours,both Mussulman and Hindu,is given in the third volume of Colonel Briggs'

"Firishtah,"[208]translated from a Muhammadan historian --not Firishtah himself;and as this certainly covers the period of at least a portion of Krishna Deva's reign,it is well to give a summary of it.I cannot,however,as yet determine the exact dates referred to,and the story differs from that acquired from Hindu and Portuguese accounts,the dates of which are confirmed by epigraphical records.

Sultan Quli proclaimed himself an independent sovereign in 1512.The historian referred to states that shortly after this Quli attacked and took Razukonda and Devarakonda,fortresses respectively south-east and south-south-east of Hyderabad in Telingana.After the second of these places had fallen Krishna Raya of Vijayanagar marched against the Sultan with an immense army and invaded his dominions.This must,I think,refer to about the year 1513.The Hindu army encamped at Pangul,in the angle of the Krishna river almost due east of Raichur,and here a battle took place in which the Qutb Shah was victorious The place was then besieged;it capitulated,and the Muhammadans proceeded to Ghanpura,twenty miles to the north.This fort was captured after heavy loss,and the Sultan led his army to Kovilkonda,twenty miles to the north-west,on the borders of the country of Bidar,the territory of Ala-ud-din Imad Shah.This place also fell.