# Historic Landmarks of the Deccan/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
WARANGAL.
NEAR the south-eastern corner of the Haidarabad State stand the remains of an old town, once the capital of a kingdom and for a time one of the strongholds of Hinduism in southern India against the Muhammadan invaders from the north, but now so decayed as to be little more than an appanage of a town which, though older than itself, was for a long period no more than one of its suburbs. Warangal is a station on the Haidarabad-Bezwada branch of the Nizam's State Railway, but the traveller who alights there will be borne, unless he clearly explains his destination, to Hanamkonda, which is itself a delight to the antiquary and now overshadows the former Hindu capital.
Warangal was for many years the capital of the Kakatiya dynasty of Telingana, which, according to the Muhammadan historian Badaoni, reigned for 700 years before the capture of the city by Muhammad bin Tughlaq of Delhi in 1321, and therefore, if Badaoni is to be trusted, rose to power early in the seventh century of the Christian era. According to Hindu legend a Chalukya king, possibly one of the Chalukya feudatories of the Rashtrakutas, reigned at Nandagiri (Nander) in the Deccan, and before his death divided his dominions between his two sons, one of whom reigned at Hanamkonda and the other at Kandhar, now in the Nander district of the Haidarabad State. Ballahundu, king of Cuttack, warring against Kandhar, slew king Somadeva, whose widow, Siriyal Devi, fled to Hanamkonda and there gave birth to a posthumous son, who founded the Kakatiya dynasty. There may be a substratum of truth in the legend, but at present it is of little or no historical value, for no dates are given ; much remains to be done by the epigraphist in Telingana, and it is possible that inscriptions exist which would verify or contradict both the Hindu legend and Badaoni's chronology. The first known king of the Kakatiya dynasty is Tribhuvanamalla Betmaraja, whose exact date cannot be ascertained. His grandson built the temple of the thousand pillars in Hanamkonda in 1163 and, allowing about thirty years as the average length of a reign, it may be surmised that ​Tribhuvanamalla ascended the throne in 1100. He was succeeded by his son Prolaraja or Prodaraja whose accession may be roughly fixed by the same method of computation in 1130. In any case he was reigning about 11 50. He married a lady named Muppaladevi and seems to have been both warlike and powerful. He captured but released Nurmadi-Tailapadeva III, the Chalukya Raja of Kaliani, who seems to have been his overlord, and defeated a king Govinda whose kingdom, which cannot be identified, he gave to one Udaya ; conquered Gunda, ruler of the city of Mantrakuta, which has not been identified, and repulsed an attack made on Hanamkonda by Tribhuvanamalla-Jagaddeva, raja of Patti Pombuchchapura, now Humcha in the Nagar district of Mysore, who was, like his foe, a vassal of the Chalukya rajas of Kaliani. Tradition ascribes the foundation of Warangal to Prolaraja.
Prolaraja was succeeded, probably about 1162, by his son Prataparudradeva I, who built the temple of the thousand pillars at Hanamkonda and from whose long inscription therein all of this information concerning the Kakatiyas is gathered. He conquered Domma, who cannot be identified, and Mailigideva or Mallugi, the sixteenth king of the Yadava dynasty of Seunadesha, the district which lay between Nasik and Deogir, the modern Daulatabad. He also conquered the country of Polavasa, which has not been identified, and repulsed a king named Bhima, who had seized part of the Chola and Chalukya dominions after establishing himself by the murder of a king named Gokarna. Prataparudradeva I was succeeded by Mahadeva, who was probably his son, but neither the length of his reign nor of that of Prataparudradeva can be ascertained at present. Mahadeva was succeeded in 1223 by his son, Ganapati, who defeated the Yadava raja Singhana, who reigned in Seunadesha from 1210 to 1247. There is some difference of opinion regarding the date of Ganapati's death, which is variously placed in 1257 and 1261, by which time he had begun the building of the inner or stone wall of Warangal. No son survived him and he was succeeded by his widow Rudrammadevi, who completed the stone wall of Warangal and surrounded the city by an outer wall of earth. She is said to have reigned for 38 years and was reigning when Marco Polo* ​visited southern India. In 1294, a date which does not coincide with the date given for her husband's death and the length of her reign, she is said to have abdicated in favour of his grandson Prataparudradeva II, who was evidently the son of a son of Ganapati who had predeceased his father. In the year given as that of the accession of Prataparudradeva II the dominions of the Kakatiyas extended as far westward as Raichur, for in that year the fort of Raichur was founded by Gore Gangayya Ruddivaru, a servant of the family. Prataparudradeva II was reigning when Telingana was first invaded by Malik Kafur Hazardinari, entitled Malik Naib, the general of Sultan Ala-ud-din Khalji of Delhi, and was still reigning, though nominally as a tributary of the emperor of Delhi, when Muhammad bin Tughlaq invaded Telingana in 1321 and was forced to retire to Deogir. Later in the same year or, according to another account, in 1323, Muhammad bin Tughlaq returned to Warangal, on which occasion the city was captured and Prataparudradeva II was sent as a prisoner to Delhi, whence, however, he was allowed to return to Warangal where he reigned, as a vassal of Delhi until his death in 1325, when he was succeeded by his son Virabhadra or Krishna, who retired immediately after his accession to Kondavir, after which event the Kakatiya dynasty is believed to have disappeared from history; but, as will be seen, the Hindus of Telingana rebelled in 1343-44, towards the end of Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reign, and one Kanya or Kanhayya Naik, who may possibly have been identical with Krishna the Kakatiya, recaptured Warangal while one of his relatives, who had accepted Islam and held Kasupala for the emperor of Delhi, recanted and declared himself independent.
Some of the monuments of the Kakatiyas are still to be seen at Warangal, and at Hanamkonda, their earlier capital. The earliest of these, so far as legend helps us, is the magnificent temple of the thousand pillars at Hanamkonda. This temple, which, as has been said, was built by Prataparndradeva I, is probably one of the finest examples of Chalukyan architecture now extant, and exhibits the best characteristics of that style. It is dedicated to the god Rudra, the thunderer, who seems to have been the tutelary deity of the Kakatiyas, and contains, carved on a square pillar in what is now an outlying portion of the temple, a long Sanskrit inscription in the old Kanarese ​character with an exordium of eight lines in old Telugu commemorating Mahamandaleshwara ("the great Lord") Rudradeva, son ot Prolaraja, Jagatikesarin Kakatiya, son and successor of Tribhuvana Betmaraja of Warangal. To this inscription, which is dated in Shaka 1084 (A. D. 1162-63) we are indebted for most of the knowledge of this dynasty which we at present possess. The temple also contains another inscription of much later date, in Telugu, which commemorates the heroism of a Muhammadan general named Shitab Khan. The existence in a Hindu temple of an inscription written in a Hindu language in praise of a Muhammadan general calls for some explanation, and we shall see later how it happened that this general was deemed by Hindus worthy of the honour accorded to him.
The next monument in chronological order is the inner or stone wall of Warangal. This, we have seen, was begun by Ganapati and completed by his widow Rudrammadevi, who also built the outer wall of the city. The circumference of the stone wall is 4 miles and 630 yards, and though it is evidently of Hindu workmanship, as appears from the architecture of the gateways, it must frequently have been repaired by Musalmans, for countless stones carved with figures of Hindu gods and their attendants which have been removed from the large temple which stood in the centre of the inner fort, have been built at random into the wall, their carved surfaces being sometimes turned inwards for the better concealment of objects of idolatrous worship. Of the large temple just mentioned nothing remains but four magnificent gates, even the enclosing wall having been removed, but from the large area which this wall enclosed and the exquisite carving of the stones which have been used for the repair of the fort wall there can be no doubt that the Warangal temple far excelled in magnificence the temple of the thousand pillars at Hanamkonda. The Muslims in their iconoclastic zeal unfortunately destroyed not only the temple, but also any inscription that it may have contained, thus rendering it impossible to say by whom it was built, but it may be conjectured that its builder was one of those who followed Prataparudradeva 1 on the throne, anxious to surpass his ancestor. The diameter of the area enclosed by the earthen wall built by Rudrammadevi is about two miles, and this space was occupied by the city of Warangal, while that within the stone wall seems to have contained, ​besides temples, the palaces of the Raja and his nobles. There is yet another outer wall, also of earth, the remains of which are distinctly visible, enclosing an almost circular area, the diameter of which varies between 8½ and 9 miles. The use of this outer rampart can only be conjectured, for it is obvious that it cannot have been the wail of a fenced city. The defence of more than 29 miles of wall would have been a task beyond the capacity even of those vast armies which the Hindu rulers of the south were able in old times to gather round themselves, and an urban area of more than 127 square miles would have been an extravagant allowance for the population of the greatest cities of antiquity. It may be conjectured that this outermost wall enclosed all the suburban villages and was no more than an unnecessarily costly suburban boundary ; but its existence has stimulated lovers of the marvellous to flights of fancy, and the modern inhabitant of Warangal will inform the visitor that the old city had no less than seven walls, of which three have already been mentioned. The remainder are said to have disappeared, but it is gravely asserted that the rock fortress of Bhongir was merely a bastion on the outermost wall, from which it may be roughly calculated that this mythical wall had a circumference of 373 miles and enclosed an urban area of 20,240 square miles; but the retailers of the legend have evidently not made this calculation.
One of the most interesting facts revealed by the Hanamkonda inscription is that the Kakatiya dynasty did not lay claim to independent kingship, for Prataparudradeva I refrains from styling himself by any title higher than that of Mahamandaleshwara, or "great lord," a style used by rajas who were admittedly vassals. Prola Raja, who was reigning in 1 1 50 and was the father of the author of the inscription, was a feudatory of the western Chalukyas of Kaliani, of whom nothing is known after the year 1183. It is evident that Prataparudradeva I acknowledged the supremacy of this dynasty, but the position of the Kakatiyas after its subversion is not clear. They probably assumed complete independence, but may have been beset by claims of overlordship put forward by the northern Yadavas of Deogir, the Hoysala Ballalas of Dwarasamudra, or both, but there is not sufficient evidence to show that such claims were ever admitted. The attitude of the Yadavas towards the ​Kakatiyas when the Musalmans appeared on the scene affords little indication of the relations between the two dynasties, for it was probably dictated by unavoidable subservience to the hand which held the sword.
It is now necessary to notice very briefly the first invasion of southern India by the Musalmans. In 1294, twenty years before the battle of Bannockburn. Ala-ud-din Khalji, nephew and son-in-law of Jalal-ud-din Firuz Shah Khalji, the reigning emperor of Delhi, descended like a thunderbolt on the Deccan, hitherto an unknown land to the Muhammadans of northern India, and in the course of a brief campaign succeeded, by the mere force of almost incredible rashness and effrontery, in reducing the Yadavas of Deogir to the condition, of vassals of the empire of Delhi. Ala-ud-din, on his return from Deogir, murdered his uncle and usurped his throne, and having learnt during his raid the position and power of the Hindu kingdoms of the south despatched an expedition in 1309 under the African Kafur Hazardinari, who bore the title of Malik Naib, to Warangal. The invading army was assisted by Ramchandra of Deogir with men, money, and supplies, and on passing Indur,* the frontier post between Deogir and Warangal, began to plunder and devastate the country. The wretched inhabitants fled headlong to the capital, where they took refuge in the outer fort surrounded by Rudramma Devi's earthen wall, while the Raja Prataparudradeva II and his nobles remained in the stone fort which was the inner line of defence. The Hindus, hemmed in by the invader, had little chance of obtaining relief from without, as any convoys destined for Warangal would have been compelled to run the gauntlet of the Muhammadan army; but Malik Naib had instructions to content himself with a substantial acknowledgment of suzerainty, and the scion of the Kakatiyas preferred submission to extinction. He sent his Brahmans and Bhats to Malik Naib and offered to deliver to him all the treasures, jewels, elephants, and horses then in Warangal and thenceforward to send annually to Delhi a fixed tribute of treasure and elephants : Malik Naib accepted without hesitation terms which accorded so well with his instructions, and, after receiving lOO elephants, 7,000 horses and a large quantity of jewels and precious stuffs, returned to Delhi in 1310. ​ Between that period and the date of the next invasion of the Warangal kingdom the Khalji dynasty was overthrown and one of the principal Turki nobles of the empire, Malik J auna, better known as Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, was raised to the throne. In 1321 he sent his eldest son, Muhammad, against Warangal. Prataparudradeva feared to meet the Musalmans in the open field and shut himself up, with his nobles, in the fort of Warangal. Muhammad bin Tughlaq ravaged all the neighbouring country and collected large quantities of supplies, but the besieged were reinforced by troops from districts and some fierce fighting ensued, in which the Muhammadans were victorious. Prataparudradeva then offered to surrender all his treasure and to pay tribute, in the hope of ridding himself of the invaders, but Muhammad's instructions from his father differed from those which Malik Naib had received from his master and precluded him from acceding to any offer save that of an unconditional surrender. The besiegers were unable to effect an immediate entry into the fort and the siege continued, but communications with Delhi were now interrupted, and the prince, who had hitherto received periodical messages from his father, became alarmed at the absence of news from headquarters, where, for all that he knew, a revolution might have placed an usurper on the throne. Some self-seekers in his army who were tired of their sojourn in the south, and, jealous of the confidence placed in the old amirs of Ala-ud-din Khalji, deliberately gave currency to a rumour that Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq had died and that a usurper had ascended the throne, and then falsely assured the older officers of the army that Muhammad suspected them of disloyalty and was seeking occasion to slay them. Ala-ud-din's amirs, alarmed for their safety, assembled their troops and withdrew from the prince's camp, leaving him no alternative but to retire with the force under his immediate command. As he retraced his steps to Deogir he was pursued by the men of Telingana, who, without venturing to bring him to battle, harassed him during his retreat and plundered his baggage train. When Muhammad reached Deogir with his following he found the Raja of that place still loyal, and succeeded in collecting some of the scattered remnants of the army, but the leader of the amirs of the old regime, Malik Tamar, who either still believed the false report that Muhammad was seeking his life or deemed that he had sinned ​beyond forgiveness, fled with a small following of horsemen into Gondwana, where he perished. Another of the old amirs of Ala-ud-din was slain by the Hindus and flayed, his skin being sentto the prince at Deogir. Other fugitives were seized by the Hindus and were by them bound and sent to the prince, who sent them on to his father at Delhi. These wretches, with their wives and families, were brought forth in the presence of multitudes and executed in oriental fashion by being impaled alive or by being trampled or dragged to death by elephants, so that as the historian says, "Such fear and terror were implanted in the bosoms of the spectators that the whole city fell a-trembling."
Muhammad remained in Deogir, having no intention of presenting himself before his father re infecta, and four months later he received reinforcements from Delhi, and written instructions from the emperor to march at once on Warangal. Nothing daunted by his previous failure, which had been due rather to treachery and lack of self-confidence than to actual mismanagement, he set forth, and captured Bidar on his way. On reaching Warangal he resolutely besieged the place and in a very short time succeeded in taking both the outer and the inner forts by storm. Prataparudradeva, his wives and children, and all his principal nobles were made captives, and were sent to Delhi together with much treasure. Warangal was then formally annexed to the empire and was renamed Sultanpur.
This second expedition of Muhammad bin Tughlaq to Warangal, which according to most accounts was undertaken in 1321, is placed by Badaoni in 1323 Prataparudradeva II, as we have seen, returned to Warangal from Delhi and reigned as a vassal until his death in 1325. His son Virabhadra, or Krishna, retired to Kondavir and, so far as is generally known, ended his days there in peace; but when the Deccan was in rebellion against Muhammad bin Tughlaq in 1334-35, the Hindus of Telingana seized the opportunity of shaking off" the Muslim yoke and rebelled under the leadership of Kanya or Kanhayya Naik, who may be conjecturally identified with Krishna the Kakatiya Kanhayya recaptured Warangal and a relative of his who, as has been mentioned, had accepted Islam and held Kampula for the emperor of Delhi, recanted and proclaimed himself independent. ​ In 1347 the Bahmani dynasty was founded by Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah, who wrested the Deccan from the emperors of Delhi. Kanhayya Naik profited by the campaigns of Bahman Shah, which rendered impossible the transmission of tribute to Delhi, to assume an unobtrusive independence, but, when the new Sultan had established himself on his throne and reduced the minor Hindu pretenders to obedience, he turned his attention to Telingana and captured the picturesque rock fortress of Bhongir, a structure surmounting one of the largest of those strange mammiform masses of solid rock which occur in Telingana. The ruler of Warangal wisely refrained from provoking the Muslim king to advance on his capital, and agreed to remit to Gulbarga, the capital of the new kingdom of the Deccan, the tribute which Prataparudradeva II had been accustomed to remit to Delhi, thus safeguarding his semi-independent kingdom against the interference of the Musalmans. Bhongir became the frontier post of the Bahmani kingdom and eastern Telingana was left undisturbed. Later in his reign Bahman Shah divided his kingdom into four tarafs or provinces, the capitals of which were Gulbarga, Daulatabad, EUichpur, and Bidar. The last named town was regarded as the capital of western Telingana, which formed part of the Bahmani kingdom. The extent of the province may be estimated with some approximation to correctness by the names of the principal towns, Bidar, Kandhar, Indur, and Kaulas, which it contained. Bhongir is not mentioned, and it would appear that this fortress had been allowed to fall quietly into the hands of the Hindus and that a line running due north and south through a point a little to the east of Indur formed at this time the eastern boundary of the Bahmani dominions. Bhongir was perhaps exchanged for Kaulas, which is mentioned as a place which was specially ceded by the Raja of Telingana to Bahman Shah.
In 1358 Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Muhammad I. This king became involved in a dispute with Bukka I, Raya of Vijayanagar, who claimed the Raichur Duab as part of his kingdom and demanded that it should be restored to him. The Raja of Telingana, who seems to have been the Kanhayya Naik already mentioned, seized this opportunity and preferred a request for the retrocession of the fort of Kaulas. He explained that his son ​Vinayaka Deva, called Nag Deo by Firishta, was in rebellion and demanded the government of the fort and district of Kaulas, and hinted that Muhammad Shah would be wise to surrender the fort and thus gain a friend and ally, for if he refused he would find Warangal leagued with Vijayanagar against him. Muhammad Shah received the envoys from Warangal and Vijayanagar with courtesy, and in return sent envoys with temporizing messages, for he was doubtful of his ability to cope with the allies at once. Having thus gained time he set his house in order, dismissing all officers who did not merit his confidence and replacing them by others more active and trustworthy. When his preparations were complete he summoned the Hindu envoys to an audience and in the presence of his whole court reproached the rajas of Vijayanagar and Warangal for not having sent him the complimentary tribute which fell due on his accession, and demanded all the elephants and valuables which they could collect. The envoys, dismayed at the turn which affairs had taken, communicated the Sultan's demands to their masters. The raja of Warangal at once sent his son Vinayaka Deva with a large army against Kaulas, and Bukka of Vijayanagar sent an army of 20,000 horse and foot in the same direction. The armies of the provinces of Bidar and Berar were sent against the invaders, defeated them, and pursued them as far as Warangal, where a heavy indemnity was levied from Kanhayya. The Muhammadan army then retired to Gulbarga, but further trouble was to be brought on Warangal by the head-strong Vinayaka Deva.
In 1361 a caravan of horse dealers visited Gulbarga, and Muhammad Shah, who was a lover of horses, sent for them and inspected their stock. He found no horse fit for the royal stable and upbraided the dealers for bringing sorry nags to the court of the king of the Deccan. They replied that they had brought to India a number of fine horses, but that Vinayaka Deva, who was then governor of Vailampallam,* had compelled them to sell the best of their horses to him at a low price. The king then asked them why they had not told Vinayaka Deva that the horses were intended for Muhammad Shah Bahmani, who had the ​first refusal of them. The dealers replied that they had done so, but Vinayaka Deva had paid no heed to what they said. It needed but this to inflame the wrath of Muhammad Shah, who was already incensed by the thought that Vinayaka Deva had once escaped him, and he took the field without delay, leaving his minister as his deputy at Gulbarga. He marched by way of Kahani to Bidar, where he left the main body of his army to follow at leisure while he pressed on with no more than a thousand horsemen to Vailampallam, travelling at such speed that he covered a month's march in a week. On arriving at Vailampallam with his small force he found that success was not to be attained without stratagem. A small body of Afghans was sent on in advance of the army and gained admittance to the city on the pretence that they were peaceful merchants who had been robbed of their goods and were fleeing from the robbers. While the guards at the gates were employed in questioning the pretended fugitives Muhammad Shah arrived with his thousand horsemen, and the guards made for the gates in order to shut them on the newcomers, who were believed to be the robbers. This belief throws some light on the administration of criminal justice and the nature of the government of a Hindu state in the fourteenth century. That a band of robbers who had already secured their booty should pursue their victims into a fenced city with murderous intent was apparently regarded us nothing unusual. The Afghans meanwhile played the part assigned to them. They attacked and overpowered the guards and Muhammad Shah entered the city with his small force and massacred all who were found in the streets. Vinayaka Deva was enjoying himself in a garden, and with difficulty escaped to the citadel, to which Muhammad Shah laid siege, impressing all the citizens into his service for the manufacture of scaling ladders. The Hindu prince lost heart on observing the determination of the besiegers and considering the impossibility of the arrival of aid, and at nightfall a wicket in rear of the citadel was opened and Vinayaka Deva with a few faithful attendants took to flight. Muhammad Shah had received information of the prince's intention, and the fugitives were pursued and overtaken almost immediately, and meanwhile the Muhammadan force entered the citadel and took possession of all the treasure. On the following morning Vinayaka Deva was summoned to the royal presence and ​was asked how he had dared to appropriate horses reserved for the Bahmani King. Ignorant of the fact that Muhammad Shah was inclined to be merciful, and deeming that death would in any case be his meed, he gave rein to his tongue, and indulged himself after the fashion of the Deccan, with foul and scathing abuse of his conqueror. His offence met with its fitting reward. His tongue was torn out by the roots, and a large pyre of wood just without the city wall having been made ready for his reception he was projected into it from a balista. Muhammad Shah remained for a fortnight in Vailampallam, enjoying his conquest, and from time to time detachments from the army at Bidar joined him, but were not allowed to participate in the revels of the conquering force. He then set out on his homeward way, but by this time the Hindus had recovered somewhat from their surprise and beset the retreating Musalmans, who were obliged to abandon the heavier articles of plunder and to content themselves with the gold and jewels which had fallen into their hands. The troops had to leave even their tents behind them and collected supplies day by day from the villages through which they passed. At night they could not venture to unsaddle their horses, and the Hindus hung on their flanks and rear until the frontier of the Bahmani dominions was reached, occasionally even venturing to attack the retreating army. In these combats the Musalmans were invariably victorious, but were unable to shake off their pursuers, and in one of them the Sultan himself was wounded. The Muhammadan troops at Vailampallam had been reinforced, before the Sultan's departure, by 3,000 horse, and numbered 4,000 when the retreat began, but of these no more than 1,500 reached their homes. After crossing the frontier Muhammad Shah halted at Kaulas, and the minister at Gulbarga, on hearing of his losses, sent a fresh force from the capital. Muhammad Shah despatched these troops into the territories of Warangal, where they laid waste village after village and slaughtered the inhabitants. When they returned, glutted with carnage, Muhammad Shah took them back with him to Gulbarga.
The insignificant successes of the Hindu troops during Muhammad Shah's retreat did not console the Raja of Warangal for the loss of his son and the sufferings inflicted on his people by the Musalmans, and in 1363 he sent a petition to Firuz Shah of Delhi beseeching him to order ​the amirs of Malwa and Gujarat to march against Muhammad, and promised, with the aid of Bukka of Vijayanagar, to invade the Bahman dominions simultaneously from the south and south-east, and to submit himself to the emperor and pay tribute regularly as a vassal of Delhi. Firuz Shah, however, was not disposed to meddle with the affairs of the Deccan, and Muhammad Shah, hearing of the letter to Delhi, resolved to crush the Raja of Warangal. He sent orders to his cousin, Khan Muhammad, governor of Daulatabad, to assemble his troops in the hills above Daulatabad and to protect the northern provinces against invasion from the north or north-east, and summoned Saffdar Khan Sistani from Berar and Azam-i-Humayun from Bidar, with the troops of those provinces, to the capital. The minister was again appointed lieutenant of the kingdom and Muhammad Shah marched to Kaulas, which he made his base. Azam-i-Humayun was sent against Golconda and Saffdar Khan against Warangal, while the Sultan and Bahadur Khan, with the army of Gulbarga followed the two columns, ready to support either.
The Raja of Warangal was now reduced to serious straits. For some reason which is not clear he was disappointed of help from Vijayanagar. Firishta says that the Raya of Vijayanagar, that is to say Bukka I, died at this time and was succeeded by his nephew and that the empire of the Peninsula was consequently unprepared to take the field, but according to Mr. Sewell, Bukka I did not die until 1379. Mr. Sewell adds, however, on the authority of inscriptions, that Kampa seems to have reigned in Vijayanagar from 1343 to 1379 and that he was succeeded by his son Sangama, who was reigning in 1356. It would appear, therefore, that the throne of Vijayanagar was in dispute, and that neither claimant was in a position to undertake a campaign beyond the frontier. The Raja of Warangal fled from his capital and took refuge in the jungles, at the same time sending many of his most trusty and able courtiers to Bahadur Khan to entreat him to use his influence to dissuade the Sultan from proceeding to extremities. The entreaties of these envoys were fruitless, and the Muhammadan armies devastated Telingana. The wretched raja then sent his younger son with a deputation of nobles to Muhammad Shah's camp, professing his entire submission to the Bahmani king and beseeching forgiveness for the contumacy of which he had been guilty. He basely urged that the guilt was ​less his own than that of the Raya of Vijayanagar, who, he said, had instigated him to oppose the Musalmans. Muhammad Shah at first turned a deaf ear to these entreaties, but at the instance of Bahadur Khan, who was probably actuated by motives other than an altruistic love of peace for its own sake, he agreed to negotiations for peace and appointed Bahadur Khan, the raja's intermediary, his plenipotentiary. Peace was concluded on the following terms: — Three hundred elephants, thirteen lakhs of huns, and two hundred horses were to be sent to Gulbarga, and the fortress of Golconda, with the district of which it was the capital, was to be ceded to Muhammad Shah. These terms were considered hard but Muhammad had already occupied Golconda and they were the best that could be obtained. Muhammad Shah retired to Bidar and left Azam-i-Humayun in Golconda and Bahadur Khan in Kaulas to see that the terms of peace were fulfilled. The latter received the envoys of Warangal at Kaulas and sent them on with the stipulated gifts to Muhammad Shah at Bidar, where they were courteously received. In a second audience the envoys presented to Muhammad Shah a magnificent jewelled throne which had originally been made by Prataparudradeva II for Muhammad bin Tughlaq. This throne, which was afterwards known as the takht-i-firuza, was made of ebony and was three yards in length and two and a half in breadth. It was overlaid with plates of gold heavily jewelled which were removable and could be packed in boxes for travelling. Successive kings of the Bahmani dynasty added more jewels until, in the reign of Mahmud Shah, the fourteenth king, the throne was valued at ten millions of huns, or about ₤400,000. Muhammad Shah, in consideration of this splendid gift, gave a solemn undertaking that he would regard Golconda as his frontier and would not seek to molest Warangal unless the raja should break the peace.
After this campaign the rajas of Warangal were left unmolested by the Bahmani Kings for many years. In 1417 their instalments of tribute had fallen into arrears and Firuz Shah, the eighth king of the Bahmani dynasty, sent messengers to demand payment, which was peaceably made. Ahmad Shah Wall, the brother and successor of Firuz Shah, made war on Devaraya II of Vijayanagar in 1422, and the latter summoned the Raja of Warangal to his assistance. Ahmad Shah halted on the north bank of the Tungabhadra for forty days while the allied ​Hindu armies encamped on the south bank and harassed his army. At the end of the forty days Ahmad Shah resolved to cross the river, and the Raja of Warangal, on hearing of his intention, deserted his ally and fled with his army to Warangal. Devaraya II was ultimately defeated and compelled to pay tribute and Ahmad Shah then prepared to punish the Raja of Warangal for having entered into an alliance with Vijayanagar, and, late in 1424, marched on Golconda. Having reached that fortress he sent the Khan-i-Azam with a force against Warangal and, after halting for a month and twenty days at Golconda, followed him with the main body of the army. Before he could reach Warangal he heard that the Khan-i-Azam had captured the place. The raja, who had heard of the approach of Ahmad Shah, hastened to deal with the advanced guard of the Musalmans before their main body arrived, and attacked the Khan-i-Azam. He was defeated and slain, with seven thousand Tailanga horsemen, and Warangal, with all the treasure which the rajas of Warangal had with so much difficulty concealed from the invading hosts of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, fell into the hands of the Khan-i-Azam. Ahmad Shah bountifully rewarded his successful general and halted at Warangal while the Khan-i-Azam reduced the other fortresses of Telingana, a task which occupied him for four months, at the end of which time, having garrisoned the forts so captured, he rejoined his master in Warangal and received further rewards. Ahmad Shah then returned to Gulbarga, leaving the Khan-i-Azam in Warangal with instructions to extirpate all members of the raja's family. Thus eastern Telingana came, for the first time, directly under the sway of the Musalmans.
In 1459 Humayun Shah Bahmani set out to punish the zamindar of Devarkonda, who had assisted the rebel Sikandar Khan, and marched to Warangal, which he made his headquarters. Khaja-i-Jahan the Turk and Nizam-ul-Mulk Ghori were sent against Devarkonda and, after defeating the Hindus in the field, besieged them in the fortress. The defenders were hard pressed and sent to the Raja of Urisa for assistance. He sent to their aid a large force with several elephants and assured them that he would soon arrive on the scene in person. The Hindus were much encouraged by the news, and Nizam-ul-Mulk and Khaja-i-Jahan took counsel together as to what they should do. Nizam-ul-Mulk ​urged the necessity of withdrawing from the cramped position before the fortress and meeting the Hindus in the open plain, but the Khaja-i-Jahan opposed any change of position on the ground that the enemy would certainly attribute it to fear, and would pursue the army as it withdrew, and Nizam-ul-Mulk was forced, against his own better judgment, to acquiesce in his colleague's view. What he had foreseen happened. The allied Hindu army attacked the Musalmans in a position in which the cavalry of the latter could not act and completely routed them. The two generals, with the remnant of the army, fled to Warangal closely pursued by the Hindus. The Khaja-i-Jahan was the first to find his way to the presence of the tyrant Humayun, and when asked what had been the cause of the defeat, basely lied, and said that it had been due to the insistence of Nizam-ul-Mulk on awaiting the enemy in a bad position. Humayun soundly rated the Khaja and then, as his custom was, issued immediate orders that Nizam-ul-Mulk should be put to death without allowing him an opportunity of explaining matters. Whether Nizam-ul-Mulk actually suffered death or whether he succeeded in escaping, as his followers did, to the court of Mahmud Shah Khalji of Malwa is not quite certain, but it is probable that he was executed. The Khaja-i-Jahan was tortured and imprisoned. Humayun Shah was preparing to send a second army against Devarkonda when in April, 1460, he received information of a rebellion in the capital and returned to Bidar in haste, leaving Mahmud Gawan to settle affairs in Tehngana. In September 1461, Humayun Shah died and was succeeded by his son Nizam Shah, a boy of eight. Khaja-i-Jahan the Turk was appointed governor of Telingana and the country appeared to be settled, but evil days were in store for the Bahmani kingdom. The raja of Urisa, elated by his victory at Devarkonda, summoned to his aid the zamindars of Telingana, now thoroughly disaffected and in noway cowed by the presence of a Muhammadan army in their midst, and invaded the Bahmani kingdom, laying waste the country as far as Kaulas. The young king's mother, with the help of the Khaja-i-Jahan and Mahmud Gawan, assembled an army of 40,000 horse at the capital and marched to meet the invaders, who had advanced to within twenty miles of Bidar. The raja of Urisa was utterly defeated and his army was pursued so vigorously that had he not purchased safety by a heavy indemnity the ​Musalmans would certainly have made good their boast that not one Hindu should reach his home alive. But the Hindus had scarcely been driven from the kingdom when Mahmud Shah Khalji of Malwa invaded it. The details of this campaign need not be related. It is sufficient to say that Mahmud Shah, before he was driven back to his own country, captured the city of Bidar and that the raja of Urisa and the chiefs of Tehngana again rose against Nizam Shah and were with difficulty held at bay by the local Muhammadan forces while the armies of the other provinces of the Bahmani kingdom dealt with the Sultan of Malwa.
After this outburst Telingana and Urisa gave no trouble to the Bahmani kings until the following reign, when the raja of Urisa died in 1 47 1, leaving a nephew named Hambar and a supposititious son Mangal Raya, who ascended the throne. Hambar appealed for aid to Muhammad Shah Bahmani III, who responded to the call by despatching Malik Hasan Bahri, on whom the title of Nizam-ul-Mulk was at the same time conferred, to eastern Tehngana, where he captured Rajamahendri and Kondavir and sent Hambar back to Urisa.
The reign of Muhammad III was a series of campaigns. In 1477 the inhabitants of Kondavir rose against their t3Tannical Muhammadan governor, slew him, and raised the standard of revolt, calling upon Hambar the Uriya and the raja of Urisa for help. The appeal was answered and Hambar with a thousand horse and seven or eight thousand foot invaded Telingana and marched on Rajamahendri, of which place Nizam-ul-Mulk was governor. The governor was not strong enough to meet the enemy in the field and prepared to stand a siege in Rajamahendri, at the same time sending to the capital letters explaining his position. Muhammad Shah at once set out for Telingana and the Hindus were demoralised by the news of his approach. Hambar took refuge in Kondavir, where he was besieged, and the raja of Urisa retired across the river and encamped on its northern bank after seizing all the boats that could be found. The king joined forces with Nizam-ul-Mulk at Rajamahendri, but before they could cross the river to attack the Hindus the latter retreated northwards to Urisa. Muhammad Shah then left his son with Mahmud Gawan to hold Rajamahendri and in 1478 invaded Urisa with 20,000 horse, slaying the inhabitants and laying waste ​the country. The raja fled to the uttermost parts of his kingdom and Muhammad Shah was on the point of placing a Muhammadan governor in charge of the country when the raja sent costly gifts and many elephants to royal camp and undertook never again to help the rebels of Telingana if his country were left to him. Muhammad Shah, after demanding and receiving some more elephants from the raja, abandoned his design of annexing Urisa and set out on his return journey. On his way he was detained for a month and a half at a fortress the garrison of which had offended him. The raja caused the fortress to be surrendered to him and he continued his march to Kondavir, where he besieged Hambar for five or six months. At the end of that time Hambar surrendered on receiving a promise that his life should be spared. Here a large Hindu temple was demolished and some of the Brahmans and their attendants were slain as an act of religious merit. On the site of the temple a mosque was built and Muhammad Shah assumed the title of ghazi, as being the first of his line to slay a Brahman with his own hand. He remained for the next three years in eastern Telingana, consolidating his power and settling the country. At the end of this time he resolved on invading the eastern provinces of the kingdom of Vijayanagar, and before setting out he appointed Nizam-ul-Mulk, by the advice of Mahmud Gawan, governor of eastern Telingana. At the same time Azam Khan, the son of Sikandar Khan, the son of the rebel Jalal Khan, was appointed governor of western Telingana with his headquarters at Warangal. This appointment gave bitter offence to Nizam-ul-Mulk, who considered that he should have been entrusted with the government of the whole province, and laid the foundation of his quarrel with Mahmud Gawan which ended in the murder of that great man. Nizam-ul-Mulk could not openly object to the appointment of Azam Khan, but he endeavoured to escape from what he regarded as a humiliating position by suggesting that he might be allowed to place one of his sons in charge of the government of eastern Telingana while he himself accompanied the king on his expedition into the Vijayanagar country. The son indicated by him was Malik Ahmad, who had some years before been given a jagir in Mahur at the instance of Mahmud Gawan, who judged it unwise to employ both the father and his more able and ambitious son in the same ​province. Muhammad Shah, against the advice of Mahmud Gawan, granted this request and Malik Ahmad was recalled from Mahur and placed in charge of the government of eastern Telingana while Nizam-ul-Mulk accompanied the king in his extensive crescentade in the dominions of Raja Narsingha, a vassal of the ray a of Vijayanagar. The details of this campaign are interesting, but have no immediate connection with the history of Warangal.
On Muhammad Shah's return from his campaign the reform which had been foreshadowed by the division of Telingana into two provincial governments was completed, and the four tarafs or great provinces of the Bahmani kingdom were divided into eight. Berar was divided into the provinces of Gawil and Mahur, Daulatabad into those of Daulatabad and Junnar, Gulbarga into those of Gulbarga and Bijapur, and Telingana was finally divided into the two provinces of Warangal and Rajamahendri, of which the former remained under the government of Azam Khan and the latter under that of Nizam-ul-Mulk. The powers of the tarafdars or provincial governors were at the same time curtailed. Each tarafdar had formerly had in his hands all the forts in his province, but under the new regulation only the fort at the headquarters of each province was to remain in the hands of the tarafdar, all other forts being commanded by amirs appointed by and directly responsible to the sovereign. The military regulations, too, were revised. By the regulation of Bahman Shah, the founder of the dynasty, commanding officers were allowed either in the form of the revenue of jagirs or by drafts on the treasury, or from both sources combined, a lakh of huns for every five hundred men whom they were expected to maintain, but their forces were not regularly mustered or minutely inspected. By the new regulation the allowance for every five hundred men was raised to a lakh and a quarter of huns, but at the same time a more rigorous system of supervision was introduced and deductions were made for each man short of the establishment. These excellent regulations made both for efficiency and for the well-being of the soldier, but were extremely unpopular among the great nobles, and caused widespread resentment against the reformer Mahmud Gawan, whose chief supporters were Yusuf Adil Khan and other Turki Amirs. The Deccanis and Africans to a man opposed the innovations, and set ​on foot schemes for the overthrow of their author. Zarif-ul-Mulk the Deccani and Miftah the African, two proteges of MahmudGawan, taking advantage of the absence of Yusuf Adil Khan in Narsingha's country, plotted with Nizam-ul-Mulk to bring about their master's downfall, and bribed an African who was the keeper of his seal to lend them the seal for a short time. Having obtained it they affixed an impression of it to a sheet of blank paper on which a treasonable letter to the raja of Urisa was afterwards written. Possessed of this forgery Zarif-ul-Mulk and Miftah awaited their opportunity until Nizam-ul-Mulk had an audience of the king, when they presented the paper. Muhammad Shah was astounded at what he deemed to be his minister's treachery and Nizam-ul-Mulk heaped fuel on the fire of his wrath. Mahmud Gawan was summoned. Though urged by his followers to fly he refused to admit that he had any reason for fear and presented himself before his sovereign. Muhammad Shah asked him what was the fitting punishment for one proved to be guilty of treason against his king, and the minister unflinchingly answered "Death." He was then shown the letter, which he at once declared to be a forgery. He protested his innocence and demanded an inquiry, but the king, whose wrath was inflamed with wine as well as with the false witness borne against his victim, gave orders for his immediate execution : and rose and left the hall. Jauhar, an African executioner, then drew his sword and raised it to strike. The great minister recited the short creed of Islam, and as the sword fell, cried, "Praise be to God for the blessing of martyrdom." This great crime, perpetrated on April 6, 1481, was the primary cause of the dissolution of the Bahmani kingdom. The foreign nobles refused to trust a king who could thus reward his most faithful servant, and returned to their provinces without leave. Muhammad Shah soon learnt that he had shed innocent blood, and, after vainly trying to drown remorse with wine, died within a year of his minister, crying with his last breath that Mahmud Gawan was tearing at his entrails.
In the following reign all save one of the greater tarafdars proclaimed themselves independent and in 1490 the governors of Berar, Daulatabad, and Bijapur assumed the royal title. In the meantime Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk had been appointed governor of western Telingana and had chosen as his head quarters Golconda, where he ​built a fort which he named Muhammadnagar. He refused to join the tarafdars who revolted in 1490 and remained steadfastly loyal until 1512, when it was no longer possible to maintain the fiction of a Bahmanid reigning as king at Bidar. He then followed the example of the other tarajdars, though it does not appear that he encouraged the use of the royal title. During the period of Sultan Quli's government of Telingana it is probable that Warangal fell into the hands of Hindus or other rebels, for in the most detailed history of his reign which has come down to us it is mentioned among his conquests. The most frequent aggressor was a mysterious Musalman entitled Shitab Khan. This warrior, regarding the reading of whose title there is no manner of doubt, is described in the Tarikh-i- Muhammad Qutb Shahi as "the Raja of Khammamet, a fearless infidel". This description has much puzzled Lieutenant-Colonel Briggs who, in volume III of his History of the Rise of the Muhammadan Power in India, makes Shitab Khan a Hindu, and confers on him the title of "Seetaputty." The historian of the Qutb Shahi kings is, however, corroborated by the Telugu inscription in the Hanamkonda temple, bearing the date 1503, which has already been mentioned. The truth seems to be that Shitab Khan was a renegade Musalman who, on the disruption of the Bahmani kingdom, allied himself with Hindus and by means of their aid established a small independent principality. From the inscription we may infer that he was in possesssion of Hanamkonda and Warangal in 1503, and he was still in possession of the same tract in 1515 after Sultan Quli Qutb Shah's war with the Sultan of Berar, at which period Khammamet, Warangal, and Nalgunda were included in Shitab Khan's dominions. On Sultan Quli's return to Golconda after his campaign against Ala-ud-din Imad Shah his nobles reported to him that Shitab Khan had ravaged the borders of the kingdom and was preparing for war. No attempt was made by Shitab Khan to hold Warangal, which passed without a struggle into Sultan Quli's hands while he marched on southwards to the siege of Belamkonda. After a protracted campaign, in the course of which Shitab Khan received much assistance from his Hindu allies, the whole of eastern Telingana, as far as the sea coast, was conquered and included in the Qutb Shahi dominions. Shitab Khan escaped and found a refuge with his Hindu friends and though he, or, as seems ​more probable, a son bearing his title, caused some trouble in the latter years of the reign of Ibrahim Qutb Shah, who reigned from 1550 to 1580. Warangal was never again annexed to a Hindu kingdom of Telingana, and remained part of the Qutb Shahi dominions until those dominions were annexed to the Mughal Empire by Aurangzib in 1687.
Aurangzib had small leisure for composing troubles in his extensive conquests in the south, and the administration of these provinces, between the incompetence of the Mughal officials and the turbulent rapacity of the Marathas, was in the most hopeless confusion. Before Aurangzib's death the inhabitants of the country around Haidarabad had implored him to take measures for the destruction of a freebooter named Papra, a toddy-drawer by caste, who had assembled a small army, built for himself a fort at Shahpur in the Bhongir pargana^ and raided the country far and near. Aurangzib appointed Rustam Dil Khan subahdar of Haidarabad, and the new subahdar, after the defeat of detachments which he had sent out against the rebel, took the field in person, but, after besieging Shahpur unsuccessfully for two or three months, retired on receiving from Papra a gift which may be regarded either as tribute or as a bribe but which, whatever it might be called, was accompanied by no guarantee that the marauder would stay his hand, which fell with equal weight on the goods and the families of his victims. Prince Kam Bakhsh who, after his father's death, was governor of Bijapur and Haidarabad, did nothing to repress Papra, who was so much encouraged by the retirement of Rustam Dil Khan that he ventured to attack Warangal, from which his stronghold was about thirty miles distant.
On Muharram 10, A. D. 1120 (April i, 1708) when all, Musalmans and Hindus alike, as the historian says were engaged in the procession of the fabuis, Papra arrived at the fort of Warangal with two or three thousand infantry and four or five hundred horse, and closed the roads in order to prevent news of his arrival from reaching the interior of the town. Before dawn the infantry set to work to scale the walls of the fortress while the cavalry sacked the town. The fort was captured and money and property to the value of lakhs of rupees and many of the famous carpets of Warangal fell into the hands of the plunderers, and about 12,000 men, women, and children were taken prisoners. Among ​the women the wife and daughter of the Qazi, Muhammad Said, were captured. Papra kept the former for himself and placed the latter, who was eight or nine years of age, with a troupe of dancing girls, in order that she might learn their profession. After this exploit he continued his successful career until the inhabitants of Warangal sent a petition to the emperor Bahadur Shah, beseeching him to come in person and crush the rebel. The emperor replied that it would ill become his dignity to set forth in person, at the head of the imperial army, against a toddy-drawer; but he sent Yusuf Khan Ruzbihani, an active and resourceful officer, to suppress the rebellion. Shahpur was captured, but Papra contrived to escape to Tarikonda, which was garrisoned by some of his men. Here he stood a siege of nine months, at the end of which time many of his men having deserted him, he contrived to flee alone and without the knowledge of any to Hasanabad, two stages distant from Tarikonda. Here he was recognized, and was surrounded, wounded, and brought as a prisoner before Yusuf Khan. The captured bandit poured foul abuse on his conqueror and was suffered to live for a few days only, until his hoards were discovered. He was then severed into pieces, joint by joint. His head was sent to the emperor and his limbs were set above the gates of Haidarabad.
In 1767, during the war between the East India Company on the one side and Nizam All of Haidarabad and Haidar Ali of Mysore on the other, the Government of Bengal created a very successful diversion by despatching a force from Calcutta under Colonel Peach. This force landed in the northern Sarkars and occupied Khammamet and Warangal, thus immediately threatening Haidarabad. The movement induced Nizam Ali to treat with the Company's officers and the result of the negotiations was the treaty of 1768, which, though its terms have been adversely criticised by the historian of Mysore, finally detached Nizam Ali from his alliance with Haidar AH.
Since 1768 the history of Warangal has been uneventful. It was for some time a cantonment of the Haidarabad Contingent, but was abandoned many years ago.
* ↑ * Marco Polo extols her as a wise and well beloved queen, who remained a widow for her husband's sake and ruled his kingdom well.
* ↑ * Lately renamed Nizamabad. It is the headquarters ot the district of the same name in the Nizam's dominions and is a station on the Haidarabad-Godavari Valley Railway.
* ↑ * The identification of this place is not certain. Firishta calls it Vailampattan, and the authors of the Btirhaiii Maasir and the Tabaqat-i-Akbari call it Filampattan and Ralampattan. The place was probably Vailampallam, north of the Gcdavari and near its mouth, and it is likely that the horses were landed near this spot.