第10章

A variant of this relates that the two brothers for some reason fled direct from Warangal to Anegundi.This account redounds more to their honour as Hindus.Though compelled first to accept service under their conquerors,their patriotism triumphed in the end,and they abandoned the flesh pots of Egypt to throw in their luck with their co-religionists.

A fourth story avers that the hermit Madhava himself founded the city after the discovery of a hidden treasure,ruled over it himself,and left it after his death to a Kuruba family who established the first regular dynasty.

A fifth,mentioned by Couto,[30]who fixes the date as 1220,states that while Madhava was living his ascetic life amongst the mountains he was supported by meals brought to him by a poor shepherd called Bukka,"and one day the Brahman said to him,'Thou shalt be king and emperor of all Industan.'The other shepherds learned this,and began to treat this shepherd with veneration and made him their head;and he acquired the name of 'king,'and began to conquer his neighbours,who were five in number,viz.,Canara,Taligas,Canguivarao,Negapatao,and he of the Badagas,and he at last became lord of all and called himself Boca Rao."He was attacked by the king of Delhi,but the latter was defeated and retired,whereupon Bukka established a city "and called it Visaja Nagar,which we corruptly call Bisnaga;and we call all the kingdom by that name,but the natives amongst themselves always call it the 'kingdom of Canara.'"Couto's narrative seems to be a mixture of several stories.His wrong date points to his having partly depended upon the original chronicle of Nuniz,or the summary of it published by Barros;while the rest of the tale savours more of Hindu romance than of historical accuracy.He retains,however,the tradition of an attack by the king of Delhi and the latter's subsequent retirement.

Another authority suggests that Bukka and Harihara may have been feudatories of the Hoysala Ballalas.

Nikitin,the Russian traveller,who was in India in 1474,seems to favour the view that they belonged to the old royal house of the Kadambas of Banavasi,since he speaks of "the Hindoo Sultan Kadam,"who resided at "Bichenegher."[31]

Here we have a whole bundle of tales and traditions to account for the origin of the great kingdom,and can take our choice.There are many others also.Perhaps the most reasonable account would be one culled from the general drift of the Hindu legends combined with the certainties of historical fact;and from this point of view we may for the present suppose that two brothers,Hindus of the Kuruba caste,who were men of strong religious feeling,serving in the treasury of the king of Warangal,fled from that place on its sack and destruction in 1323and took service under the petty Rajah of Anegundi.Both they and their chiefs were filled with horror and disgust at the conduct of the marauding Moslems,and pledged themselves to the cause of their country and their religion.The brothers rose to be minister and treasurer respectively at Anegundi.In 1334the chief gave shelter to Baha-ud-din,nephew of Muhammad of Delhi,and was attacked by the Sultan.Anegundi fell,as narrated by Batuta,and the Sultan retired,leaving Mallik as his deputy to rule the state.Mallik found the people too strong for him,and eventually the Sultan restored the country to the Hindus,raising to be rajah and minister respectively the two brothers who had formerly been minister and treasurer.These were Harihara I.("Hukka")and Bukka I.

The First Vijayanagar Dynasty [The following shows the pedigree of this dynasty as given in the EPIGRAPHIA INDICA (iii.p.36).Inions not yet satisfactorily examined will probably add to the information given.]