Ahmed Shah 1518. Alla-ood-deen Deposed, to death. Wully Oolla 1524. may be said to have virtually closed; but Ameer Bereed found a king necessary to his political existence. The Bahmuny Leo X. pope, family were still respected in their fall by their former vassals, and could not be interfered with, whereas had II. succeeds, the minister declared independence, he could not have maintained it. The Prince Ahmed, eldest son of the Dies, 1520. deceased king, was therefore placed on the throne, as Ahmed Shah Bahmuny II., and died in 1520. He was ceeds, 1520. replaced by Alla-ood-deen Shah Bahmuny II., the second son of Mahmood Shah, in the same year, who was a person of steady character and some determination, and formed a plan for arresting Ameer Bereed, and ridding himself of him. This plot was, however, accidentally discovered, and the king deposed, after a nominal reign of two years, and shortly afterwards 1522 and put put to death. He was succeeded by Wully Oolla, the third son of King Mahmood, who, like his brother Alla- Shah suc ood-deen, tried to liberate himself, and was poisoned ceeds, 1522. in order to make way for the marriage of Ameer Bereed Poisoned, to his queen, of whom the minister had become en- Kulleem amoured, in the year 1524. He was again succeeded Oolla Shah by Kulleem Oolla, the son of Ahmed Shah, by the 1524. daughter of Yoosuf Adil Shah of Beejapoor. The sweden and king was, however, kept in close confinement; but in became 1526 he contrived to send one of his companions with Protestant. a petition to the Emperor Babur, who, however, was in no condition to interfere, and he afterwards escaped to his uncle, Ismail Adil Shah, and resided for a time at Beejapoor. Nothing, however, being done on his behalf, he proceeded to the court of Ahmednugger, where he resided till his death, and the Bahmuny dynasty ended with him: it had reigned, for the most part, in great glory and power, from 1347 to 1526, or 179 years. From it had sprung five separate independent kingdoms: Imád Shahy, or kings of Berar; Nizam Shahy, or kings of Ahmednugger; Adil Shahy, or kings of Beejapoor; Kootub Shahy, or kings of Golcondah, and Bereed Shahy; for Ameer Bereed assumed the style and title of king after the departure of Kulleem Oolla Shah Bahmuny. The histories of these States must be sketched separately, until they are connected with the period already referred to, namely, 1526. succeeds, Denmark Bahmuny On reviewing the events of the dynasty of the Bahmuny kings of the Deccan, and notwithstanding the early cruelties Review of the to the Hindoo inhabitants of Beejanugger, in the reign character of of Mahomed Shah I., it is evident that they were, on the dynasty. whole, considerate to their Hindoo subjects, and governed them with moderation. The reign of Mahmood Shah I. was one of entire peace, and evidently one of much progress and improve Description of the Deccan ment in civil administration; while, throughout the whole period of 179 years, foreign and domestic trade had flourished. The aim of the Mahomedan historians of the Deccan was more directed to the record of war, and of political events and intrigues, than of the transactions of peaceful years; but, notwithstanding this, there are occasional pleasant glimpses of quiet times, and their beneficial effects, which are not to be found in the records of Dehly. Of the details of the government of the country little is apparent. It does not appear that the Hindoos were employed in public affairs; but it is evident that their ancient system of corporate village government and district administration was not interfered with, and became strengthened by use. Up to the regency of Mahmood Gáwan, the revenue had been probably raised in kind, on a proportion of the crops; but his system evolved a commutation for money payment upon the value of the land, much on the principle of that afterwards perfected by the Emperor Akbar, and the great Ahmednugger minister, Mullik Umber. The country was probably as well cultivated and populated as it is at present, and Athanasius Nitikin, a Russian Armenian, who, in by Athanasius 1470, visited Beeder as a merchant, gives in his diary Nitikin, 1470. an interesting description of the country and its capital. There were villages at every cóss, or two miles, about the present complement; the land was laid out in fields, and the ground well tilled; the roads were well guarded, and travelling secure. Beeder is described as a noble city, with great salubrity of climate, and the King Mahmood Shah II. as a little man, twenty years old, with an army of 300,000 men, well equipped. Artillery is not mentioned; but there were many elephants, to the trunks of which scythes were attached in action, and they were clad in bright steel armour. The architecture of the Bahmuny of the period. dynasty is not remarkable. The royal mausoleums at Goolburgah are heavy gloomy buildings, with domes, roughly built and finished; but some of the stone terraces around them show specimens of good arabesque carving. The material, basaltic trap, did not, perhaps, invite more finished works. If, however, the mosque in the interior of the fort at Goolburgah, begun by Feroze Shah, had ever been completed, it would have been one of the grandest buildings in India. The city of Goolburgah is still a considerable town, and the head of a province of II.H. the Architecture Nizam's dominions, carrying on a large trade in cotton and oilseeds with Sholapoor and Bombay. The fort is still perfect, but the rich palaces of Feroze Shah are masses of undistinguishable ruins. Without, the tombs of the early Bahmuny kings form noble groups of buildings; and deserted mosques and tombs of all descriptions, with ruins of pavilions and garden-houses, mark the City of Goolburgah. fortresses. once great extent of the royal city. Goolburgah is situated upon the railway from Sholapoor to Raichore, and is one of the principal stations on the line; and a line in extension will shortly connect it with Hyderabad. Could a greater contrast between India in the 15th and 19th centuries be imagined? When the court removed to Beeder it is evident that the style of architecture was much improved. The royal palaces were noble and spacious buildings, containing lofty halls and apartments, and the large oriel windows and arches, then filled up by carved woodwork, admitted air and light freely. The noble college of Mah- College at mood Gawan, in the city of Beeder, was perhaps the Beeder. grandest completed work of the period. It consisted of a spacious square, with arches all round it, of two storeys, divided into convenient rooms. The minarets at each corner of the front were upwards of a hundred feet high, and, as also the front itself, covered with enamel tiles, on which were flowers on blue, yellow, and red grounds; and sentences of the Korán in large Kufic letters; the effect of which was at once chaste and The Bahmuny superb. The fortresses built by the Babmuny kings are, however, perhaps their greatest and most indestructible monuments, and far exceed any of the same period in Europe. They are of all kinds, both on the plains and on the crests of mountains, from baronial castles to forts of the grandest dimensions. Gawilgurh and Narnalla in Berar, especially the latter, are choice specimens of grandeur of design of mountain fortresses, and tasteful and munificent execution. At Narnalla, the first gateway near the crest of the mountain is covered with stone carving, in the most elegant designs, as perfect now as, when it was built, 450 years ago. In the plains, Puraindah, Kulliany, Sholapoor, Owsah, Nuldroog, Dharoor, Mahore, Kandhar, Yatgeer, Shahpoor, Oodgeer, and many others, are equally remarkable and beautiful; and of all, Puraindah and Owsah are the most perfect, according to military science. They consist of a wide deep ditch, and counterscarp with a covered way, and glacis rising to the height of the faussebraye. The gates were defended by traverses and redoubts; and the rampart and faussebraye are of cut stone, with round bastions fitted.for the heavy guns of the period; which, many of them of immense size, and used for throwing stone shot, were composed of bars of iron welded together. their descen To this dynasty, the origin of the present Mahomedan warlike population of the Deccan in the rural districts is still classes and traceable. The foreign troops, that is the Persians, dants. Tartars, Moghuls, and Arabs, intermarried with the women of the country, or took them, forcibly at first, as slaves and concubines, and from them descended the Deccanies or mixed breeds, also soldiers, but counted of lower estimation, who have gradually merged into the present agricultural classes, and in some places still preserve their ancient haughty distinction of Alla-ood-Moolks, Bhylemees, Kálachuttrees, and other designations derived from their original leaders. Their warlike spirit, however, has not remained, and in this respect they are perhaps inferior to their fellow-farmers and labourers, the Mahrattas. In respect to education, the Education. Bahmuny kings were liberal for their time. Mosques, often perhaps small and rude, were built in all the principal villages and market-towns, and well endowed as part of the existing village system. To each a moolla was appointed, who acted as schoolmaster and priest, while kazies and higher officers of civil law superintended the whole; colleges existed at the chief cities, all richly endowed. Thus means of education were free to all who chose to learn Persian or Arabic; and in most of the Deccan villages the endowments still exist. The Hindoos, it may be presumed, were neither assisted nor interfered with, and their literature was confined to the Sanskrit language, and to its professors the Brahmins. In the Telingá country, the example of the ancient Hindoo rulers in regard to irrigation works irrigation. was followed in a liberal and spirited manner by the Mahomedans, and many of the noblest lake reservoirs now existing were built by them. On all these points, and in a general amelioration of manners, there is no question that the Mahomedan occupation of the Deccan during the existence of the great Bahmuny dynasty had not been barren of good effects. Works of CHAPTER XVI. OF THE SOUTHERN HINDOO STATES, SUBSEQUENT TO THE FIRST MAHOMEDAN INVASION-THE DYNASTY OF VIJYANUGGER OR BEEJANUGGER, A.D. 1119 To 1524. IN Chapters XIV. and XV., Book I., the histories of several of the southern medieval Hindoo dynasties have been sketched; but in them, that of Beejanugger could have no place, for it was not in existence at the period of the dissolution of the Chalúkya dynasty of Kulyan, and the extension of their dominions by the Yádávás of Déogurh. The family of Beejanugger claimed a very antiquity of ancient origin, and a detail obtained by Mr. Edward Ravenshaw, of the Bengal Civil Service, from the Rajah of Anagoondy, its lineal descendant and present Great the Beeja nugger family. representative, and published in the 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xx., gives a list of eighty-five princes from Pandoo, the original founder, to Yésha Nandi, whose fourteen sons divided his dominions, and being conquered by another power, Nandá Maharaja, one of them, fled to Wurungul, in Telingána, and established a dynasty there. It would appear, therefore, that he belonged to the Andhra race. Nandá died in A.D. 1076; and the succession proceeds to Vijála Raya, of Kulyan, in A.D. emperor, 1119, who, it will be remembered, had usurped the throne; but his brother Vijya Raya established himself about the same period at Vijyanugger, which he named after himself, and became the founder of a new dynasty. Era of Nandá. Henry IV. deposed. Now, comparing the foregoing with the history of Kulyan, as shown by its inscriptions (vide Chapter XV., Book I.), some confusion is apparent. Vijála, who occupied the throne of Kulyan in 1162 A.D., was a Kála Bhúrya, and a feudal noble of the Kulyan kingdom; and it is quite possible that his brother or descendant Vijya, in the troublous times which succeeded the deposition of the Chalukyas, may have established a new dynasty at Beejanugger, and incorporated with it the former Kála Bhúrya possessions, which lay directly west of that city. Vijya's line, however, of five successions, ended with Bhoop Raya, who having no male issue, adopted Bukka Rajah, son of the Rajah of Kumpila, or Kumply, near Vijyanugger, from whence an unbroken line descended. By another account, however, Bukka and Hárihárá alone are stated to be the founders of the Beejanugger dynasty, Bukka and and to have been fugitives from Wurungul, after its Harihara. first conquest by the Mahomedans in 1322. The probability of. the first account is questionable, from the fact that Beejanugger lay in the route of Mullik Kafoor, when he traversed the country from Déogurh or Dowlatabad to the sea, and when Dwára Sumoodra fell, would not have been overlooked; but, on the other hand, the sudden growth of the dynasty, if only established in 1322, to a power which could dispute the empire of the south of India with the Mahomedans after the death of Mahomed Toghluk, is hardly conceivable. A third hypothesis is founded upon the record of the great Brahmin missionary, Máhádéva Acharya, who states that he was the minister for a time of Sangama, a prince whose dominions extended to the southern, western, and eastern seas—that is, embraced the whole of the southern peninsula-and that Bukka and Hárihárá were his sons, and the inscriptions of these princes, given in Vol. IX of the 'Asiatic Researches,' confirm this account. The historian Ferishta, too, seems to have been at much pains |