United States or China ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Heem" Rajah, or, as Briggs renders the name, "Tim" Rajah representing "Timma," and referring doubtless to Saluva Timma, the great minister of Krishna Deva had, forty years earlier, become DE FACTO ruler of Vijayanagar on the death of the two sons of a former king, "Seo" Raya. He had poisoned the infant son of the younger of these sons, and had thus succeeded in becoming head of the state.
And this passage helps us definitely to the conclusion that his Heemraaje, or Timma Raja, was the Muhammadan name for the ruler of the state during the reigns of Narasimha, Narasa or Vira Narasimha, and Krishna Deva Raya, the latter of whom died in 1530.
We learn something more from other writers. Barros states that about the year 1523 Saluva Timma, the king's minister, invaded the mainlands near Goa, which had been recently acquired by the Portuguese under Ruy de Mello; that he advanced towards Ponda with a small force, but that he was attacked and driven back.
On Saluva Timma's son escaping to a "mountain range" perhaps Sandur, on the south of the capital, where there are still to be seen the remains of a strong fortress built of cyclopean masonry on the summit of the highest hill, now known as Ramandrug the king summoned Timma and his brother and son, and had their eyes put out.
A little later Krishna Raya's son, a young prince on whom he desired to confer his crown, and in whose favour he had even gone so far as openly to abdicate, died suddenly of poison, and the king, then himself in a dying condition, arrested and imprisoned his own minister, Saluva Timma, and his family. In this he was aided by some Portuguese who happened to be present at the Durbar.
Nuniz says that Saluva Timma appointed his own brother captain of Kondavid, but an inscription at that place gives us the name of this man as Nadendla Gopamantri, and calls him a nephew of Timma. Kondavid seems to have been under the kings of Orissa since A.D. 1454; its capture by Krishna Deva took place in 1515.
If so, the choice was singularly unfortunate, for Achyuta was a craven and under him the Hindu empire began to fall to pieces. His minister was one of the powerful Saluva family, to which also had belonged Timma, the minister of King Krishna. Nuniz calls him "Salvanay."
Senhor Lopes tells me that he has found in the National Archives in the Torre do Tombo, amongst the "Livros das Moncoes," a number of papers bearing on this subject. It appears from these that the king was devoid of energy, and that one Timma Raya had revolted against him.
He next proceeded against Kondavid, another very strong hill-fortress also in possession of the king of Orissa, where he met and defeated the king in person in a pitched battle, and captured the citadel after a two months' siege. He left Saluva Timma here as a governor of the conquered provinces, and went in pursuit of his enemy northwards.
Nuniz tells us that immediately on attaining power, the king, making Saluva Timma his minister, sent his nephew, the son of the last sovereign, and his own three brothers, to the fortress of Chandragiri, 250 miles to the south-east, for his greater security, and himself remained for some time at the capital.
Word Of The Day