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It is necessary to observe that this success of the Hindus was only temporary, for their enemies still swarmed in the Dakhan, and immediately after this contest the Hindus appear to have retired south of the Krishna, leaving the distracted country a prey to temporary anarchy.
Civil war and rebellion amongst the Muhammadans helped Harihara and Bukka in their enterprise. Sick of the tyranny and excesses of Muhammad Taghlaq, the Dakhan revolted in 1347, and the independent kingdom of the Bahmanis was for a time firmly established. The chronicle of Nuniz opens with the following sentence:
The Sultan's next war took place in A.H. 828, when he advanced against Warangal over the undulating plains of the Dakhan, then rich in crop, and was completely successful. The Hindu kingdom was completely and for ever destroyed.
The war was probably undertaken in revenge for a cruel massacre of Muhammadans which took place in this Year A.D. 1469, according to Barros. At this period the coast trade was altogether in the hands of the Muhammadans, and they used to import large numbers of horses, principally for the use of the great contending armies in the Dakhan and Vijayanagar.
About the year 1475 there was a terrible famine in the Dakhan and the country of the Telugus, which lasted for two years. At its close the Hindu population of Kondapalle revolted, murdered the Muhammadan governor, and invited aid from the king of Orissa.
He defeated him, captured him, flayed him alive, and causing his skin to be stuffed with straw ordered it to be paraded through the provinces of the empire as a warning to ambitious governors. With reference to Gujarat, Nuniz has been led into a slight error. Muhammad Taghlaq certainly did go there, but only in 1347. What he did do was to conquer the Dakhan. He also held Gujarat firmly.
When Vijayanagar sprang into existence the past was done with for ever, and the monarchs of the new state became lords or overlords of the territories lying between the Dakhan and Ceylon. There was no miracle in this. It was the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India.
No attention being paid to this, the Raya set out to search for the Shah, hoping, that he would be induced to do homage in the manner demanded and appearing to ignore altogether the effect which would necessarily be produced on the minds of the other kings of the Dakhan by this contemplated supreme humiliation of one of their number. The submission never took place.
His expeditions were raids and nothing more. Other invasions, however, followed in quick succession, and after the lapse of two centuries the Muhammadans were firmly and permanently established at Delhi. War followed war, and from that period Northern India knew no rest. At the end of the thirteenth century the Muhammadans began to press southwards into the Dakhan.
About this period, therefore , the political condition of Southern India may be thus summed up: The Muhammadans of the Dakhan were triumphant though still divided in interest, and their country was broken up into states each bitterly hostile to the other.
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