Historic Landmarks of the Deccan/Chapter 1

by Thomas Wolseley Haig

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

I PROPOSE to give in this introductory chapter an outline of the history of the Deccan, slight indeed, but sufficient to supply the links necessary to connect the following accounts of places famous in story. Incidents fully described in the following chapters will here receive but slight notice, while important crises or events without a knowledge of which the history of southern India cannot be fully understood, but which are not part of the local history of any of the places of which accounts appear hereafter, will be more fully described.

The period which this sketch will embrace begins in 1294, in which year the Muhammadans first appeared in the Deccan. Our knowledge of the Deccan before this period is chiefly confined to the dry bones of history and has been most admirably summarised by Dr. Bhandarkar in his scholarly work.*^[1] This knowledge is not likely to be expanded otherwise than by the labours of the epigraphist and the numismatist, who have still much to do in the Deccan, for the mediæval Hindu failed conspicuously as a historian.

An account of Ala-ud-din Khalji's daring raid into the Deccan will be found in the following chapter. At the time when he surprised Devagiri or Deogir, then the northernmost kingdom of that part of India which had not been either overrun or threatened by Muhammadan invaders, three kingdoms existed in the Deccan and the Peninsula. Immediately to the south of the Satpuras lay Deogir, which was probably bounded on the south-east by the line which divides the ethnographical divisions of Maharashtra and Telingana, that is to say, a line running in a south-westerly direction from a point near the south-eastern corner of Berar towards Gulbarga. The western limit of this kingdom has not been ascertained, but it may have extended at times to the sea, though it is probable that the petty chiefs of the Konkan and the Western Ghats maintained, as a rule, a rude independence. The kingdom of Warangal or Telingana adjoined Deogir on the south-east, extended to the sea on the east, and on the west at least as far as Raichur. Its southern boundary was probably formed by the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers to within about a hundred miles of the sea, when it took a south-easterly direction and met the coast at a point to the south of Motupalli. To the south of Warangal lay the kingdom of Dvaravatipura or Dhorasamudra, the ruins of which city still exist at Halebid in the Mysore State. This kingdom was governed by the Hoysala dynasty, a branch of which, the Yadavas of Deogir, governed the northernmost kingdom. Warangal was under the sway of a dynasty known as the Kakatiyas.

Ala-ud-din, on his return from his raid into the Deccan, murdered his uncle, Jalal-ud-din Firuz Shah Khalji, and ascended the throne of Delhi on October 26th, 1296. The sequence of expeditions from Delhi against Deogir and Warangal is given in the accounts of those places. In 1 31 8 the kingdom of Deogir was finally annexed to Delhi, and in 1325 Telingana was annexed, and the whole of the Deccan was thus brought under the sway of the Muhammadans.

The empire had now reached dimensions which rendered efficient administration by one central controlling authority difficult, if not impossible ; and disintegrating influences were at work. The ferocious tyranny of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the second emperor of the house of Tughlaq, drove his subjects to rebellion in all quarters of the empire. In 1346 the amirs of the Deccan, who had for some time been disaffected, were summoned by the emperor to aid him in suppressing a rebellion in Gujarat. They set out on their journey in obedience to the summons, but had hardly left Daulatabad *^[2] when they began to suspect that the summons was a mere pretext, and that Muhammad's real object in sending for them was to mete out to them, for their past delinquencies, the cruel punishment which he was wont to inflict on the disaffected and the disobedient. They slew the officers who had been sent to summon them and returned to Daulatabad, where they imprisoned the imperial governor and elected one of their own members, Ismail Fath †^[3] the Afghan, king of the Deccan under the title of Nasir-ud-din Shah. The emperor immediately marched into the Deccan and laid siege to Daulatabad, but before he could reduce the place he was recalled to Gujarat by the turn which affairs had taken in that province. The rebellious amirs had little difficulty in overpowering the force which he left to carry on the siege of Daulatabad, and the Deccan was independent of Delhi. Ismail the Afghan, an aged man, had little taste for the cares of government and voluntarily resigned the crown which had been placed on his head. In his place the amirs elected as their king Hasan Gangu, entitled Zafar Khan, an energetic soldier who had taken a prominent part in the rebellion. Hasan claimed descent from the hero Bahman, the son of Isfandiyar, and on ascending the throne of the Deccan on August 4th,*^[4] 1347, assumed the title of Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah, †^[5] and chose Gulbarga, where he had held a jagir from Muhammad bin Tughlaq, as the capital of the new kingdom.

The boundaries of Bahman Shah's dominions were the Tapti on the north and the Tungabhadra and the Krishna on the south. On the east and west the boundary varied with the power and warlike spirit of the petty Hindu chieftains of Urisa and Telingana on the one hand and of the Konkan and the Western Ghats on the other, but it was not until near the end of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Muhammad III, the thirteenth king of the dynasty, that the kingdom stretched from sea to sea.

The history of the Bahmani dynasty, so named from the title assumed by its founder, is largely the history of fierce warfare with the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, which arose on the ruins of the kingdoms of Warangal and Dhorasamudra during the troubles of the later years of the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq. A detailed account of this warfare will be found in Chapter IV, which contains an account of the Raichur Duab, or the land lying between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, always a fruitful source of strife.

The wars with Vijayanagar were varied by expeditions against the Hindu chiefs of Telingana and Urisa, and the petty rajas in the Western Ghats, and occasionally the Bahmanis found themselves at war with the Muhammadan Sultans of Gujarat, Khandesh and Malwa, or the Gond rulers of Kherla, but these hostilities were merely interludes in the long period of warfare with the great Hindu empire which, though frequently defeated, was never entirely crushed by the Bahmanis. That task was reserved for a confederation of the rulers of the independent Muhammadan states which sprung into existence on the disintegration of the Bahmani Kingdom.

Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah divided his kingdom into four tarafs or provinces, Gulbarga, Daulatabad, Berar, and Bidar, appointing to each a governor whose powers were almost regal. Each maintained an army and made all civil and military appointments in his province, and it is strange that rebellion was not more frequent. This was checked by frequent royal tours in the provinces and by the regular employment of the provincial armies, under the king's command, in the campaigns against Vijayanagar.

In 1428 Ahmad Shah Wali, the ninth king of the Bahmani dynasty moved the capital of the kingdom from Gulbarga to Bidar.

One of the principal features of politics in the reigns of the later Bahmani kings was the perpetual strife between the Deccani and the " Foreign" nobles, which first became acute about the middle of the fifteenth century in the reign of Ala-ud-din Ahmad Shah II, the tenth king of the dynasty, and continued as long as any independent kingdom existed in the Deccan. It was the custom of the Bahmani kings to employ adventurers freely in their army. These strangers were chiefly fair-skinned foreigners from Persia, Arabia, and Central Asia, bold, energetic, and enterprising, who brought with them followers of their own race. They were employed as a rule, in preference to the less active and hardy Deccanis, in all difficult enterprises, and seldom failed to acquit themselves well. Many rose to the highest offices in the state, to the prejudice of the native Deccani, who found himself outstripped by the stranger at the council board as well as in the field. The success of the foreigners was, naturally enough, distasteful to the native-born Indians, and led to recriminations and quarrels, and at length to bloodshed, the Deccanis, as the aggrieved party, being the first aggressors. The ill-feeling between the parties was accentuated by religious differences, for large numbers of the foreigners were of the Shiah sect, while the Deccanis were generally orthodox Sunnis. It was probably for this reason that one class of foreigners ranged themselves on the side of the Deccanis. These were the Africans of whom large numbers were employed. They were, with few exceptions, Sunnis, and it may be surmised that the dark-skinned, unlettered, and unprepossessing African was at a disadvantage beside the fair, handsome, and cultured man of the north, and that this cause, as well as difference of religion, had the effect of throwing the Africans and the Deccanis together. When, therefore, the feuds between the Deccanis and the foreigners are mentioned, it must be understood that the parties consisted of the Deccanis and the Africans on the one side and the Turks, Arabs and Persians on the other. Ill-feeling between the two parties probably existed from the earliest days of the Bahmani kingdom, but it was not until a century had elapsed that it led to open violence.

When Berar was invaded in 1437-38 by Nasir Khan of Khandesh the foreigners under Khalaf Hasan Basri were employed in the field against the invader, the Deccanis being relegated to garrison duty. The foreigners drove Nasir Khan out of Berar, invaded Khandesh, and plundered its capital, and were received, on their return, with great honour. Khalaf Hasan received the title of Malik-ut-Tujjar, or "chief of the merchants" which was highly esteemed by the foreigners, whose first visit to the Deccan was usually in the capacity of merchants ; another foreign noble. Shah Quli Sultan, received the king's daughter in marriage, and it was ordered that the foreigners should thenceforward ride on the King's right in royal progresses, and stand on his right in Darbar, the place on the left being assigned to the Deccanis and Africans. These orders caused grave discontent and the Deccanis sought occasion to overthrow the foreigners. Their opportunity came in 1546, when Khalaf Hasan was sent with an expeditionary force consisting of 7,000 Deccani and 3,000 Arab horse into the Konkan. There he trusted too readily to the promises of a petty chief named Sirka, who feigned submission and professed himself ready to accept Islam. Sirka then proffered his services as a guide in the difficult passes of the Western Ghats and offered to conduct the army in safety to the stronghold of the contumacious raja of Sangameshwar. The offer was accepted, and Sirka treacherously led the force into an ambush, where Khalaf Hasan and most of the foreign officers and troops with him were slain. The Deccani officers had held back, and thus escaped and fled to Chakan, near Junnar, which Khalaf Hasan had made his base. The few foreigners who escaped also returned to Chakan, and attempted to send thence a message to court, to inform Ala-ud-din Ahmad Shah that the disaster had been due to the pusillanimity of the Deccanis; but the Deccanis intercepted this message and sent another to the effect that the foreigners, having suffered defeat owing to their own rashness, had now retired in dudgeon to Chakan, where they had rebelled, and were prepared to hold the fort against any force that might be sent against them. Unfortunately the Deccanis were at this time all powerful at the capital, and persuaded the king to send an army against Chakan. The Deccanis and Africans besieged the place for some time with little prospect of success, and, fearing lest delay might bring the truth to light, changed their tactics, and informed the foreigners that they had interceded for them at court and that the king had been graciously pleased to pardon them. The unsuspecting foreigners came forth, and at a banquet to which they were invited by their enemies 1,200 Sayyids and 1,000 other foreigners were slain.

A few foreigners who, with great difficulty, effected their escape, succeeded in conveying to the king a true account of what had taken place, and inquiries were set on foot, with the result that the whole truth became known and the Deccanis and Africans were severely punished and the foreigners regained their ascendency.

These quarrels constantly broke out afresh, and the bitterness between the parties had lost none of its strength in the reign of Muhammad III, the thirteenth king of the Bahmani dynasty. His chief nobles were Khaja Mahmud Gawan Malik-ut-Tujjar, the prime minister, Yusuf Adil Khan, and Fakhr-ul-Mulk, all foreigners ; Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk, Malik Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, and his son Malik Ahmad, Deccanis ; and Khudawand Khan and Dastur Dinar, Africans. Muhammad III, who was then encamped in Telingana, on the advice of Mahmud Gawan sub-divided into eight the four provinces into which the kingdom had originally been divided by his ancestor, Bahman Shah. Berar was divided into the two provinces of Gawil and Mahur ; Daulatabad into Daulatabad and Junnar ; Gulbarga into Gulbarga and Bijapur ; and Telingana into Warangal and Rajamahendri ; while the country around Bidar remained under the administration of a selected noble at court. The result of this measure is described in Chapter IV. Malik Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, who had been governor of the whole of Telingana, was mortally offended by the division of his province, and, as will be seen, plotted with other Deccanis and Africans to bring about the downfall of Khaja Mahmud, and succeeded in compassing his death. The unjust execution of the greatest statesman who had ever served a Bahmani king excited distrust and unrest even among many of the Deccanis and Africans. The foreigners who had been in the service of the murdered minister fled for protection to Yusuf Adil Khan, and the foreign troops and officers in the other provincial armies followed their example. Yusuf thus became the most powerful amir in the kingdom. Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk, the Deccani governor of Gawil, and Khudawand Khan, the African governor of Mahur, withdrew from the royal camp with the army of Berar, and, when ordered to return, excused themselves by saying that if the death of so great a man as Khaja Mahmud could be so easily compassed by slanderers they did not know what to expect. Muhammad Shah then tried persuasion, but to no purpose. They would return, they said, when Yusuf Adil Khan, who was then on service in southern Telingana, returned. Muhammad Shah therefore recalled Yusuf, who, on his return, at once joined Imad-ul-Mulk and Khudawand Khan, and these three iarafdars united to press their demands on the king. The first was that Yusuf should receive the late minister's province of Bijapur, to the government of which he was appointed. Here he was enabled to provide for all the foreign nobles and officers who had rallied round him on the death of Khaja Mahmud. A redistribution of appointments had become necessary and the Deccanis could not be entirely overlooked. Hasan Nizam-ul-mulk, who richly deserved death, was made minister, and another Deccani amir with the title of Nizam-ul-Mulk was appointed to the government of Daulatabad, rendered vacant by the transfer of Yusuf Adil Khan to Bijapur; Imad-ul-Mulk and Khudawand Khan retained the provinces of Gawil and Mahur, Dastur Dinar retained Gulbarga, and two Turki slaves who had joined the conspiracy of Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk against Mahmud Gawan, Qivam-ul-Mulk, the elder and Qivam-ul-Mulk the younger, were appointed to the government of Warangal and Rajamahendri respectively. Muhammad Shah then marched with his troops from KondapalH to Bidar, but the tarafdars, who had lost all confidence in him since his appointment of Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk to the post rendered vacant by the death of his victim, refused to enter the capital and encamped without the walls with their forces. The king was much humbled by this mark of mistrust, but dared not command them to enter the city and, with the best grace he could muster, dismissed Yusuf Adil Khan, Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk, and Khudawand Khan to their provinces.

Meanwhile Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk remained at the capital, doing his best to compass the ruin of the three refractory larafdars. They were summoned to the capital with their armies in order to accompany the king on an expedition in the direction of Belgaum, but showed by their behaviour in camp and on the march that they were able to protect themselves, and that they had no intention of trusting either the king or his minister. They would not encamp in the neighbourhood of the royal troops nor march in their company, and invariably saluted the king from afar. After a short time Imad-ul-Mulk and Khudawand Khan returned to their provinces without leave, an act which would have been deemed open rebellion by any of the king's predecessors, and Muhammad Shah gave himself up to the delights of the wine-cup in Firuzabad.

On March 23rd, 1482, Muhammad III died, and was succeeded by his son Mahmud Shah, a lad of twelve years of age. We have already seen the condition of the kingdom in the closing years of Muhammad's reign. It was not such that it could be remedied by a youth, and it speedily went from bad to worse. The great nobles present in the capital at the time of Mahmud's accession were the minister, Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder, and Qivam-ul-Mulk the younger who, though foreigners, believed that they had won the regard of the Deccanis, and Qasim Barid, a foreigner, who, for reasons of his own, one of which was probably hatred of Yusuf Adil Khan and another, probably, attachment to the Sunni faith, often identified himself with the Deccanis. The coronation was hurried on, and though there were some complaints that the greater tarafdars and the foreign nobles from Bijapur were not allowed time to attend, Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk allayed local irritation by explaining that it was impolitic to postpone the public recognition of Mahmud's accession, and that the amirs in the provinces could have another darbar assembled and arrange among themselves how they would divide the grants of titles and jagirs customary on the occasion of a coronation. Similarly all the Deccanis and African officials present in Bidar at the time endeavoured, by every means in their power, to conciliate the foreigners and to remove their apprehension.

Yusuf Adil Khan of Bijapur and Fakhr-ul-Mulk of Junnar were the first of the tarafdars to arrive at court. They encamped with their troops before Bidar more after the fashion of a hostile army intent on besieging the place than as vassals come to pay homage, for Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, who loved them not, was supreme in the city, and cau- tion was necessary. When Yusuf Adil Khan entered Bidar to pay his respects to his sovereign he took with him his most trusted officers and a thousand picked troops, fully armed, two hundred of whom he took with him, in defiance of the etiquette of the court, inside the palace. He found that Hasan had five hundred of his men within the palace walls, but went on without fear. After making his obeisance Yusuf, as his custom was, took his place on the right of the throne, above all the other amirs, and carefully watched Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, at the same time setting Darya Khan, one of his officers, to watch Hasan's son, and to be in readiness to cut him down in case Hasan's Deccanis should make a movement. When the darbar was dismissed Yusuf took Hasan's hand and thus walked with him to the gate of the palace, as though in friendly converse, but in fact prepared to slay him at the first sign of any disturbance. On the following day Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk waited on Yusuf Adil Khan and suggested that he and the other foreign amirs should lodge within the city walls. Yusuf, with expressions of friendship and a veiled threat, declined the invitation, but at the same time declared that he had no desire to interfere in the civil administration of the kingdom. It was agreed that Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk should be regent, that Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder should be prime minister, as well as tarafdar of Warangal, that Qivam-ul-Mulk the younger, the tarafdar of Rajamahendri, should be associated with him, and that Dilawar Khan, the African, should command the royal forces. After this the Deccanis and the foreigners dwelt for some time in apparent amity, but the former had no intention of allowing the latter to have that share in the administration which they had promised to them and Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk plotted with Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder to have Yusuf Adil Khan assassinated in order that Abdullah Adil Khan, the Deccani, Qivam-ul-Mulk's deputy in Warangal, might be appointed to the government of the province of Bijapur. In pursuance of this design Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk issued farmans ordering the attendance of Adil Khan the Deccani and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk of Gawil at court. These two amirs came with their armies and Hasan felt himself strong enough to act, but as a measure of precaution persuaded his friend Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder to keep his foreign troops in their quarters on the day agreed upon for the massacre, Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk was to lend a hand, and the arrangement was that his troops and those of Adil Khan, the Deccani, should defile past the Sultan, who would be seated on the battlements of his palace, and then fall on the foreigners. Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder, a simpleton who hated Yusuf Adil Khan and relied on tlie professed friendship of the crafty Brahman*^[6] Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, performed his part of the compact by preventing his troops from assisting their fellow foreigners, but though Hasan had thus thrown dust in the eyes of the Turk he had failed to conciliate a caste fellow †^[7], and Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk contrived that Yusuf Adil Khan, who had ever been his friend, should have sanctuary in the palace at the time when the plot was to be put into execution.

Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk's plot was a failure. His miserable dupe, Qivam-ul-Mulk the elder and many of the foreign troops under his command were slain, but those of Yusuf's followers who were within the palace contrived to escape from the city, performing prodigies of valour, to give the alarm to the Turki troops encamped without the walls and to lead 10,000, or, according to another authority, 20,000 cavalry into the city. For no less than twenty days the city was a scene of conflict between Deccanis and foreigners, and at the end of this time a peace was patched up by the terms of which Yusuf Adil Khan returned to his province while Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk remained at Bidar, where he retained complete ascendance over the youthful king, and Imad-ul-Mulk was made prime minister, his son Ala-ud-din being sent to govern Gawil as his deputy. Imad-ul-Mulk was, however, no friend to the veteran intriguer Hasan, and soon returned to Berar with his troops.

In 1484 Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk appointed himself to the government of the province of Junnar, and sent his son Malik Ahmad thither as his deputy. Ahmad appointed Vajih-ud-din and Sharaf-ud-din, two creatures of his own, to the government of Daulatabad, and Fakhr-ul-Mulk the Deccani, entitled Khaja-i-Jahan, to the government of Sholapur and Purenda. In i486 Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk was weakened by the death of Abdullah Adil Khan, the Deccani, at Warangal and Qivam-ul-Mulk the younger, of Rajamahendri, rose in rebellion and annexed Warangal to his own province. Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, taking Mahmud Shah with him marched on Warangal, and Qivam-ul-Mulk retreated to Rajamahendri whence he wrote a petition to Mahmud Shah complaining of the ascendency of Malik Hasan in the state. The petition fell, of course, into the hands of Hasan himself, and Qivam-ul-Malk would have had little hope of redress had not a diversion been made in another corner of the kingdom. Hasan had no sooner arrived at Warangal than he received a report from his son Ahmad, then at Junnar, that affairs in the west of the kingdom were in a state of confusion. Bahadur Gilani, a servant of the lately deceased jagirdar of Goa, had possessed himself of his master's jagir and had extended his possessions to Dabhol on the north and Kolhapur on the east, and at the instigation of Yusuf Adil Khan was ravaging Chaul and other places in the province of Junnar. Malik Ahmad had called upon Zain-ud-din Ali, the jagirdar of Chakan, for assistance, but Zain-ud-din Ali had replied that the king was not his own master, but was in the hands of others, and that he would not obey commands until he was certain that they had been issued by the king himself of his own free will. Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk ordered his son to deal first with Zain-ud-din Ali and sent orders to the governors of Parenda and Daulatabad to assist Malik Ahmad. Zain-ud-din Ali thereupon applied to Yusuf Adil Khan for help and Yusuf sent five or six thousand horse to Indapur with instructions to march against Malik Ahmad should he advance on Chakan. When the news of Yusuf Adil Khan's action reached Warangal it caused a sudden fall of Hasan's prestige and Mahmud Shah appears to have realized that a minister whose order could be thus flouted by the provincial governors was but a broken reed. He turned to Qasim Barid and Dastur Dinar the African for advice, and finding them ready to profit by Hasan's downfall, ordered them to have him put to death. Hasan, on learning what had passed, fled from the royal camp at dead of night, but instead of joining his son at Junnar, entered Bidar with a view to securing the royal treasure. Here he persuaded the governor, Dilpasand Khan, a Deccani, to raise the standard of revolt and ordered Malik Ahmad to join him from Junnar. Mahmud Shah now made Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, a Turk of a noble family of Hamadan, governor of Warangal, and marched with all speed on the capital. Hasan had no troops wherewith to withstand the royal army and, having secured the treasure, made preparations to flee to Junnar but Dilpasand Khan prevented him from carrying out this design and informed the king by a secret message that he was faithful and had merely feigned to fall in with Hasan's plans in order to detain him in Bidar and prevent him from joining his son. The king replied that he could readily prove his loyalty by sending him Hasan's head, and Dilpasand Khan after receiving this message, entered Hasan's chamber on pretence of taking counsel with him, strangled the hoary villain with his own hands, cut off his head, and sent it to the king. Mahmud Shah then returned to the capital, composed all disputes between the Deccanis and the foreigners, and gave promise of ruling well, but the temptations of the wine cup were too strong for him and he soon gave himself up to debauchery, leaving the aff'airs of the kingdom in the hands of the amirs. Disputes again arose between the two parties in the state, and in 1487 the Deccanis and the Africans entered into a plot against the king's life. A band of them entered the royal palace, and shutting the gates lest the foreign troops should come to the rescue, attempted to assassinate the king. The few foreign attendants with Mahmud Shah carried him to the Shah Burj, or royal bastion of the fort, and, all unarmed as they were, kept the traitors at bay. Thence they contrived to send a message to the foreign nobles in the city who brought up a few troops and rescued the king, but meanwhile the Deccanis and Africans plundered the houses of many foreigners in the city. In the morning Mahmud Shah gave orders for a general massacre of the Deccani and African troops. The slaughter lasted for three days, and was only checked at the instance of a holy man who was connected with the king by marriage.

After this escape Mahmud Shah gave himself up entirely to debauchery, leaving the management of affairs to Qasim Barid, the Turk. The great tarafdars grew weary of receiving orders which originated with this upstart, and from 1487 onwards were practically independent, while Qasim Barid himself, who had jagirs in the neighbourhood of Bidar, governed them without even the formality of using the king's name, which appeared only in farmans affecting unalienated lands in the province of Bidar, and in futile orders to the tarafdars.

It was not, however, till 1490 that the tarafdars openly declared themselves independent. In that year Malik Ahmad Nizam-ul-Mulk held the province of Daulatabad, Yusuf Adil Khan that of Bijapur, and Fatbullah Imad-ul-Mulk that of Gawil, or northern Berar. Nizam-ul-Mulk was the first to propose that they should assume independence, and invited Yusuf Adil Khan, Fatbullah Imad-ul-Mulk, and Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk of western Telingana to join him. The two first named agreed and, together with Nizam-ul-Mulk, assumed the insignia of royalty, but Qutb-ul-Mulk would not openly defy his master, and refused to declare himself independent. Twenty-two years later, in 1512, he found it impossible to maintain even the pretence of dependence, and followed the example of the other tarafdars.

The three new kings, in spite of their having openly thrown off their old master's yoke, remained well disposed towards him, and were exceedingly chary of using the royal title. They protested that they were as loyal as ever to the descendant of Bahman Shah, but that they would not take orders from Qasim Barid. They made several abortive attempts to rescue Mahmud Shah from Qasim's clutches, but the miserable debauchee could never summmon up courage to give adequate support to those who would have helped him, and invariably relapsed into his old condition of subservience.

Qasim Barid died in 1 508 and his son Amir Barid took his place. Mahmud Shah died on December 8, 1518, and Amir Barid raised his young son to the throne as Ahmad Shah III, fearing openly to usurp the crown, lest the tarafdars should unite in defence of the scion of the Bahmani line. Ahmad Shah died early in 1521, poisoned, it is supposed, by Amir Barid, and his next brother was raised to the throne as Ala-ud-din Shah III. This prince showed a disposition to assert his authority, and was therefore deposed by Amir Barid in 1523, and shortly afterwards put to death, his next brother, Wali-ullah, being raised to the throne. After a reign of two years he, likewise, was put to death and Kalim-ullah, the youngest brother*^[8] of Ahmad III, was placed on the throne. This prince privately wrote a letter to Babar, who had recently invaded Hindustan, imploring him to deliver the writer from the tyranny of Amir Barid. On this fact becoming known Kalim-ullah fled to Bijapur, where Ismail Adil Shah made an attempt to seize and imprison him. The young king then fled, with no more than eighteen horsemen, to Ahmadnagar, where he was at first well received by Burhan Nizam Shah. Later however, he was regarded as a dangerous guest, and Burhan, fearing lest the heir of the Bahmanis should excite the pity and the loyalty of the nobles and the army, placed him under surveillance. He died at Ahmadnagar in 1526 or 1527, poisoned, it is supposed, by order of Burhan Nizam Shah, and with him ended the Bahmani dynasty.

On the extinction of the Bahmanis Amir Barid assumed the royal title in Bidar. Sultan Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk had already, as we have seen, assumed it in Golconda in 1512. There were now, therefore, five independent Muhammadan kingdoms in the Deccan, Bijapur, the kingdom of the Adil Shahi kings; Ahmadnagar, that of the Nizam Shahis; Golconda, where the Qutb Shahi kings bore sway; Berar, ruled by the Imad Shahi kings; and Bidar, by the Barid Shahi kings. Of these the first three were large and powerful kingdoms, while the other two were comparatively insignificant. The story of the wars of these states is extremely complicated and has never been adequately described in English, though materials for the task are not wanting. Bijapur and Ahmadnagar were frequently at war, the frontier fortress of Sholapur being a fruitful source of strife between them. Golconda as a rule endeavoured to hold itself aloof from these quarrels, being engaged in the early days of the Qutb Shahi dynasty in reducing to obedience the Hindus of eastern Telingana, but was, nevertheless, sometimes drawn into the quarrel, and on such occasions pursued a policy of apparently purposeless vacillation. This line of conduct was, however, dictated by prudence. Having become involved in the quarrel the king of Golconda would support his ally up to a certain point, but, when it appeared probable that the assistance rendered would enable one belligerent utterly to crush the other, he either withdrew or changed sides, for the mainspring of the foreign policy of the Qutb Shahi dynasty was the maintenance of the balance of power, and the kings of that line were astute enough to perceive that if, by any mischance, the kingdoms of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar should be welded into one, the independence of Golconda, which was a slightly weaker state than either, was doomed.

Berar in these quarrels sided sometimes With Ahmadnagar and sometimes with Bijapur, until a particularly acrimonious dispute between Burhan Nizam Shah and Ala-ud-din Imad Shah concerning the possession of the town and district of Pathri, which were included in Berar but were the patrimony of Burhan's Brahman ancestors, threw the smaller kingdom into the arms of Bijapur. This dispute, which led to frequent wars between Berar and Ahmadnagar, went near to imperilling the existence of both kingdoms when Ala-ud-din Imad Shah in 1529 was so ill-advised as to invoke the aid of the ambitious Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, whose intervention gave him a foothold in the Deccan which seemed at one time likely to become permanent.

Throughout all this wrangling the little kingdom of Bidar fought for its own hand, allying itself now with one power or combination of powers and now with another. The craft and political acumen of its rulers preserved the little state intact for a longer period than might have been expected, though its preservation is partly to be attributed to the jealousy existing between the three kingdoms of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda which was for a long time sufficiently strong to ensure the combination of two of the three against an attempt by any one of them to absorb Bidar. Amir Barid not only intrigued incessantly with all three, but also coquetted with the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar. About the year 1550 Burhan Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar, in the course of his disputes with Ibrahim Adil Shah I of Bijapur, set the evil example of entering into an alliance with Vijayanagar against a brother Muslim. The strength which he thus acquired enabled him to capture the fortress of Sholapur, and Ibrahim was compelled to make peace. The death of Burhan Nizam Shah, who was succeeded by his son Husain, gave Ibrahim an opportunity of detaching Vijayanagar from Ahmadnagar and of following Burhan's example by entering into an alliance with the Hindus. On Ibrahim's death his son Ali Adil Shah I maintained the alliance, and in 1564 he invaded the dominions of Husain Nizam Shah in company with Sadashivaraya of Vijayanagar. The Hindus committed great excesses in the Ahmadnagar state and Husain Nizam Shah, in order to prevent the further desecration of mosques, was compelled to make peace on his enemy's terms. Almost immediately afterwards, Ali Adil Shah again declared war and invaded the kingdom of Ahmadnagar with his Hindu ally. The Hindus again took the opportunity of insulting the Musalmans by destroying copies of the Quran and desecrating mosques, until heavy rain compelled the allies to retire on Sholapur. Ali Adil Shah's position was now one of considerable difficulty. The conduct of his Hindu allies had exasperated not only the enemy, but all Musalmans in the Deccan, including his own troops, and Sadashivaraya, having been virtually the arbiter between the two most powerful Musalman kingdoms in the Deccan, now began to assume the position of their overlord, and openly treated Ali Adil Shah as his vassal, and demanded and received from him and from Ibrahim Qutb Shah, who had pursued a vacillating policy throughout the war, important cessions of territory. Sadashivaraya's next act was to issue a notice to the Muhammadan Sultans informing them that in future they would not be allowed to sit in his presence. This was more than could be borne, and Ali Adil Shah, who was primarily responsible for the indignity offered to himself and his co-religionists, exerted himself to form a confederacy against his late ally, and had no difficulty in persuading Ibrahim Qutb Shah of Golconda, Husain Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar, and Ali Barid Shah of Bidar to join him. The confederates marched from Bijapur at the end of 1564 and met the army of Vijayanagar on January 24, 1565, at Talikota, where Sadashivaraya was slain and the mighty empire of Vijayanagar was overthrown.

Berar had not joined the confederacy which overthrew the Hindu power at Talikota, and the Sultans of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar now invaded that kingdom to punish Tufal Khan, its ruler, for his defection. After ravaging the whole of south-western Berar the invaders retired in consideration of a heavy indemnity.

Tufal Khan was the minister of Burhanlmad Shah, the last king of the Imad Shahi dynasty, whom he treated as the Barids had treated the later kings of the Bahmani dynasty in Bidar. Burhan was imprisoned in the fortress of Narnala and Tufal Khan governed the kingdom with scarcely a pretence of subordination to his nominal king.

In 1572 Murtaza Nizam Shah I of Ahmadnagar invaded Berar, nominally for the purpose of restoring Burhan Imad Shah and freeing him from the influence of Tufal Khan, but really with the object of annexing the kingdom. Tufal Khan and his son Shamshir-ul-Mulk were defeated in the field and pursued until the former took refuge in Narnala and the latter in Gawilgarh. Both fortresses fell, and Tufal Khan with Burhan Imad Shah, who had been taken in Narnala, and Shamshir-ul-Mulk, who had surrendered at Gawilgarh on receiving an assurance that his life would be spared, were sent to a fortress in the Ahmadnagar kingdom where, in a short time, all were put to death Berar now became a part of the kingdom of Ahmadnagar and the number of the independent kingdoms of the Deccan was thus reduced to four.

Very soon after the annexation of Berar by Ahmadnagar the Mughals began to appear in the Deccan, and in 1596 Chand Bibi, the queen regent of Ahmadnagar, was forced to cede the province to Sultan Murad, the fourth son of the Emperor Akbar, in order to induce him to retire from the siege of Ahmadnagar. The hold of the Mughals on the province was, for a long time, precarious, and they were harrassed for many years by the famous Malik Ambar, who, posing as the champion of the decadent Nizam Shahi dynasty, succeeded in keeping the Mughals at bay until near the end of the reign of Jahangir. The northern invaders did not succeed in establishing themselves firmly in Berar and the Ahmadnagar kingdom until early in the reign of Shahjahan, when, in 1633, Daulatabad was captured/ and Husain II, the last titular king of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, and Fath Khan, the son of Malik Ambar, were made prisoners. The latter entered the imperial service, but the former was sent, as a state prisoner, to Gwalior, where his companion in captivity was his cousin Bahadur Nizam Shah, who had been captured some thirty years before this time, on the fall of Ahmadnagar.

Meanwhile Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur had, in 1619, annexed the small kingdom of Bidar; and when Shahjahan, later in his reign, appointed his third son, Aurangzib, viceroy of the imperial province of the Deccan with his head-quarters at Malik Ambar's capital of Khirki now renamed Aurangabad, there remained, of the five original kingdoms of the Deccan, only two, Bijapur and Golconda. In 1656 Aurangzib wrested Bidar from Bijapur and well nigh succeeded in taking Golconda, whence he was recalled by peremptory orders from Delhi. Two years later he was called northwards by the sickness of his father, and the evident intention of his brothers to maintain by force of arms their claims to the throne.

Some years later Aurangzib, now emperor of India, returned to the Deccan. His first objective was Bijapur, and that city fell in 1686, its young king, Sikandar Adil Shah, being sent into captivity at Daulatabad. Golconda fell, after a siege of eight months, in the following year, and Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, the last king of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, was sent to bear Sikandar company in Daulatabad.

The Mughal empire, now at its greatest extent, soon began to show signs of decay. The power of the Marathas was rising and their activity and influence increased during the fratricidal wars which followed the death of Aurangzib in 1707, and during the confusion which for the next twenty years prevailed at Delhi.

In 1724 a faction in Delhi incited Mubariz Khan, subahdar of Haidarabad, to attack Asaf Jah Nizam-ul-Mulk, subahdar of Malwa, promising him, as a reward in the event of success, the viceroyalty of the whole of the Deccan. Mubariz Khan, though a personal friend of Asaf Jah, was unable to withstand this temptation, and marched north-wards to meet him. Asaf Jah, though he marched southwards into the Deccan and occupied Daulatabad, did his best to dissuade Mubariz Khan from breaking the peace, but Mubariz Khan refused to listen to his counsels and pressed onwards. His plan was to turn Asaf Jah's flank and thus interpose his army between Delhi and Asaf Jah. This movement nearly succeeded, but not quite, and though Mubariz Khan passed Asaf Jah the latter turned and overtook him at Shakarkhelda in the present Buldana district of Berar, where, in October 1724, a battle was fought in which Mubariz Khan was defeated and slain. Asaf Jah renamed the village Fathkhelda, to commemorate his victory, and took possession of the prize of the war, the viceroyalty of the Deccan. The present representative of his line is Mir Sir Mahbub Ali Khan Bahadur, Nizam of Haidarabad

The Nizams of Haidarabad never paid more than a nominal allegiance to Delhi, and the progress of the Maratha power, which drove a wedge between Hindustan and the Deccan, separated them entirely from northern India. Their wars with the Marathas, the part which they took in the struggle between the British and the French for supremacy in India, and later, in the wars against Haidar Ali of Mysore and his son Tipu Sultan, and their loyalty to the British Government in the dark days of 1857 are passages of history too well known to call for detailed treatment here.

1. *Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest, Bombay 1895.
2. * Deogir had been renamed Daulatabad by Muhammad bin Tughlaq.
3. † Another reading is Mugh.
4. * December 4th according to another authority.
5. † Not, as is usually stated by historians, Ala-ud-dht Hasan Gangti Bahmani. Vide Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXXIII, Part I, extra number 1904.
6. * Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk was a Maratha Brahman of a family from Pathri domiciled in Vijayanagar who had been captured in boyhood and brought up as a Musalman.
7. † Fathullah Imad-ul-Mulk was a Brahman of Vijayanagar, whose history was similar to that of Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk.
8. * According to another account Kalim-ullah was the son of Ahmad III,