Mediæval Vijayanagar: 09-The king abdicates for his infant son
This article is an extract from Chronicle of Fernao Nuniz A Portuguese merchant or traveller at Vijayanagar Written, Probably, A.D. 1535 — 37 Published in translation by Mr. Donald Ferguson in Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor |
Mediæval Vijayanagar: 09-The king abdicates for his infant son
How this King, during his own lifetime, raised to be King his son, being of the age of six years.
After the King had made an end of this, and had obtained so great a victory over his enemies, perceiving that he was already advanced in years, desiring to rest in his old age and wishing his son to become King when he died, he determined to make him King during his lifetime, the boy being six years old and the King not knowing what would happen after his death. Wherefore he abdicated his throne and all his power and name, and gave it all to his son, and himself became his minister, and Salvatinica who had held that office became his counsellor, and he made one of the latter's sons a great lord among them.[ [575] — Saluva Timma.]
And so far did King Crisnarao go that after he had given the kingdom to his son, he himself did obeisance to him. With these changes the King made great festivals which lasted eight months, during which time the son of the King fell sick of a disease of which he died.
After his death Crisnarao learned that his son had died by poison given him by the son of Sallvatinica, and in his anger, being certain that this was so, he sent to call Salvatinica and his son and Guandaja, brother of Ssallvatinica, and many other captains relatives of Ssallvatinica, and made them a speech at the time of the salaam, there being present many chiefs and principal persons of the kingdom, and relations of Ssallvatinica; he addressed him thus: — "I held thee always as my great friend, and now for these forty years thou hast been governor in this kingdom, which thou gavest me; yet I am under no obligation to thee for that, because in doing so thou didst act in a way contrary to thy duty.
Thou wert bound, since thy lord the King my brother commanded so, to put out mine eyes; yet thou didst not carry out his will nor obey him, but instead thou didst cheat him and the eyes of a goat were put out, wherefore, since thou didst not fulfil his command, thou wert a traitor, and thy sons with thee for whom I have done so much.
Now I have learnt that my son died of poison given to him by thee and thy sons, and for that ye are all here made prisoners." With these words he arose and laid hands on them and seized them, and in doing so called for aid from many Portuguese who were then in the country with horses, asking them to come to his aid; and after he had seized the men, father and sons, they remained three years in prison.
And he made minister a son of Codemerade, the same who had killed the son of King Narsymga in the city of Penagundy in the garden by treachery, by command of the King his father, as has already been told in this history.[ [576] — (Above, p. 310 f.) The original text has "E FEZ REGEDOR HUU FILHO CODEMERADE," but I cannot identify the name with any ordinary Hindu name or title; and if "son of Codemerade" be meant, as I suppose, the DE has been omitted accidentally. If, however, there has been a confusion of syllables and the original reading was "FILHO DE CODEMERA," then I would point to the list given above of powerful nobles (p. 327) who commanded the forces of the king in the great Rachol campaign, one of whom was called COMDAMARA. In the concluding paragraph of this chapter we have this new minister's name given as "Ajaboissa," and in the list of provincial lords (p. 385 below) as "Ajaparcatimapa." The latter name sounds more probable than the former. The first half would be the family name, the last, "Timmappa," his own personal name.]
And soon afterwards Danayque, son of Salvatinica, escaped from prison and betook himself to a mountain range in which dwelt nobody but robbers and highwaymen, and in this there was a fortress where dwelt a captain, his relative, who received him and helped him in all that he could, and from there he made such war on the King Crisnarao that he was driven to send against him much people, and as captain of the army he sent his minister Ajaboissa, who invested the place on all sides and took him therein and brought him prisoner to the King. After he had so come the King commanded him to be brought before him, with Sallvatinica his father and another brother of his who was kept in the prison, and he sent them to the place of executions and there had their eyes put out, for in this country they do not put Brahmans to death but only inflict some punishment so that they remain alive.
So he put them in prison again, and there Timadanayque died, and Salvatinica his father remained in the prison with his other son Gamdarja.[ [577] — In the passage earlier in this chapter Saluva Timma is said to have had a brother "Guandaja." Putting the two together, it would seem that his brother and son both bore the same name, probably Ganda Rajah. Paes refers to the brother as being in his day governor of the capital (above, p. 284. He calls him "Gamdarajo." See also p. 327, note 2.]
Ydallcao comes against Rachol
How the Ydallcao came against Rachol, and did not dare to await the King, and fled.
At this time the Ydallcao collected his army and formed afresh his forces of cavalry and elephants, and marched upon Rachol which remained under the king of Bisnaga. Hearing this news, Crisnarao, without even telling any one, ordered to saddle a horse, and he rode at full speed in the direction of Rachol where already the Ydallcao was; but as soon as his enemy was aware of the coming of the King he fled. On the road King Crisnarao bought six hundred horses from the Portuguese at the rate of 4 3/4 for 1000 pardaos.[ [578] — CYMCO MENOS HUU QUOARTO POR MIL PARDAOS, or nineteen for four thousand pardaos. The chronicler was a trader in horses at Vijayanagar. Later on he mentions the usual price as twelve or fifteen horses for a thousand PARDAOS (below, p. 381).]
And from Rachol he sent a message to the Ydallcao saying that he had already twice broken his oath and his word, and that as he had not fulfilled the promise he had made he would make war on him in such fashion as that by force he should become his vassal, and that he would not let him alone till he had taken from him Billgao.[ [579] — Belgaum.]
As the winter had now begun the King could not then go forward, and so he went to Bisnaga to make ready for this war; and he commanded to prepare a large force of artillery, and sent an ambassador to Goa to ask for the help of the Governor.
He promised him that after taking Billgao he would give him the mainland; for this city of Billgao is fifteen leagues from Goa, and its captain is lord of the mainland of Goa. Goa is the frontier or boundary of his city of Billgao, and there is one of his captains at a fortress called Pomda which is three leagues from Goa by the mainland, who also receives the revenues and has command over several villages; and in like manner these and others have captains appointed by the Ydalcao, who is lord of the whole land.[ [580] — The captain of Ponda was Ankus Khan (above, p. 335, notes 1, 2).]
While Crisnarao was thus making ready he presently fell sick of the same illness of which all his ancestors had died, with pains in the groin, of which die all the kings of Bisnaga.
Now this King Crisnarao, when he was young and growing up in this city of Bisnaga, had an intrigue with a courtezan for whom he had much affection, and who was called Chinadevidy, and for the great love he bore her he promised many times that if ever he became King he would marry her; and though he said this in jest, it afterwards became true, so the history records. For when raised to the throne and taken away from the things he had done when a young man, he still did not forget the affection he felt for this woman, but used secretly to leave his palace and go to her house. And this was discovered one night by his minister Sallvatinica, who watched him until he had got into the woman's house, and he rebuked him much for it and brought him back to the palace.
Then the King told him how well he loved her, and that he had promised to marry this woman and was determined to do so in any case; and the minister, seeing how he was bent on it, gave way to his wish, saying that he would accomplish it in such a way that His Highness would not be blamed for it. In order to do this he sought for him a very beautiful woman of the family of the kings of Narsymga, and after he had married him to her, at the end of the wedding ceremonies, he put this woman and the other in a house, to which he had added a tower very lofty and large, and in which he lodged her.
Afterwards the King married many other wives, for these kings hold it as a very honourable thing to have many wives; and this King Crisnarao married four, and yet he loved this one better than any of the others. This King built a city in honour of this woman, for the love he bore her, and called its name Nagallapor and surrounded it with a new wall which is one of the best works that he has in his kingdom, and he made in it a street very long and large with houses all of masonry. In order to people this town he ordered all the chiefs of his kingdom to build themselves palaces therein, and so they did.
This town has one principal street, of length four thousand and seven hundred paces and of breadth forty, which is certainly the most beautiful street it is possible to see; and he made and finished this town without stinting any expense on it. It now yields forty-two thousand PARDAOS of duties for things which enter into it, the duties in this land being very great; since nothing comes through the gates that does not pay duty, even men and women, as well as head-loads and all merchandise.[ [581] — About a mile and a quarter. Nagalapur is the modern Hospett. If the measurement is accurate, this street, leading, no doubt, towards the capital, is now non-existent.]
This King also made in his time a lake for water, which lies between two very lofty SERRAS. But since he had no means in the country for making it, nor any one who could do it, he sent to Goa to ask the Governor to send some Portuguese masons, and the Governor sent him Joao della Ponte, a great worker in stone, to whom the King told how he wanted the tank built.[ [582] — The Della Pontes are more than once mentioned in the history of the sixteenth century. They were probably an Italian family or Italien in origin, and engineers by profession, the Rialto at Venice having been constructed by Antonio della Ponte in 1588. This, however, may be a fanciful connection. It is possible that both in Portugal and in Italy families may have received that surname in consequence of their skill in bridge-building, or of one of the family having in former days distinguished himself by the construction of a particular bridge. The engineer mentioned in the text is probably the individual who at the end of April 1520 was sent by the king of Portugal to examine into the possibility of building a fortress at Tetuan in Morocco. Dom Pedro de Mascarenhas (afterwards, in 1554, Viceroy at Goa) sailed on this mission from Ceuta, and "Joao Nunes del Pont" is mentioned as accompanying him. The king and the Emperor Charles V. were both at this time anxious to prevent the Moorish corsairs from using Tetuan in future, as they had done in the past, as a base for their piratical attacks on Spain and Portugal. (Damiao de Goes, CHRONICA DE DOM MANUEL, edit. of Coimbra, 1790, vol. i. Part IV. p. 532; ALGUNS DOCUMENTOS DO ARCHIVO NACIONAL DA TORRE DO TOMBO, Lisbon, 1892; pp. 445 — 446.) In 1521, some time after the month of March, when Dom Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the governor of Goa, had returned from his expedition to the Red Sea, he was urged by his counsellors to build a fortress at Madrefaba near Goa, as the place contained an anchorage sufficient for an entire fleet. (Correct, LENDAS DA INDIA, ii. p. 622.) Correa continues: "The governor, however, thought better to send in a COTIA Antonio Correa and Pero de Coimbra, his chief pilot, to inspect the river of Madrefaba and measure the water on the bar, and Manuel da Ponte, Overseer of Works, and Joao de la Ponte, his brother, who understood it well, to view the land, and if there were stone, and if lime could be made for the work, and to bring him certitude of all." If this man were the same as he who went with Mascarenhas to Tetuan, he had, in all probability, not been long in India when he went to Madrefaba. This seems to show that the great tank of Krishna Deva Raya, seen in process of construction by the chronicler Paes (see p. 244), and mentioned in the text by Nunez, was not begun till at least the autumn of 1521. If so, Paes did not WRITE his description of Vijayanagar till after that date (say 1522). (See above, p. 162.)]
Though it seemed to this man (MESTRE, modern MAISTRY) impossible to be made, nevertheless he told the King he would do it and asked him to have lime prepared, at which the King laughed much, for in his country when they build a house they do not understand how to use lime.
The King commanded to throw down quantities of stone and cast down many great rocks into the valley, but everything fell to pieces, so that all the work done in the day was destroyed each night, and the King, amazed at this, sent to call his wise men and sorcerers and asked them what they thought of this thing.
They told him that his idols were not pleased with this work, it being so great and he giving them nothing, and that unless he spilled there the blood of men or women or buffaloes that work would never be finished. So the King sent to bring hither all the men who were his prisoners, and who deserved death, and ordered them there to be beheaded; and with this the work advanced. He made a bank across the middle of the valley so lofty and wide that it was a crossbow-shot in breadth and length, and had large openings; and below it he put pipes by which the water escaped, and when they wish so to do they close these.[ [583] — ESPACOS. This probably means sluices or weirs.]
By means of this water they made many improvements in the city, and many channels by which they irrigated rice-fields and gardens, and in order that they might improve their lands he gave the people the lands which are irrigated by this water free for nine years, until they had made their improvements, so that the revenue already amounts to 20,000 PARDAOS.[ [584] — POR NOVE ANOS DE GRACA.]
Above this tank is a very large ridge all enclosed, and in the middle some very strong gates with two towers, one on one side and one on the other; and within are always posted 1000 men on guard. For through this gate all things must enter that come into the two cities, since in order to enter the city of Bisnaga there is no other road but this, all other roads meeting there. This gate is rented out for 12,000 PARDAOS each year, and no man can enter it without paying just what the renters ask, country folk as well as strangers.
In both these cities there is no provision or merchandise whatever, for all comes from outside on pack-oxen, since in this country they always use beasts for burdens;[586] and every day there enter by these gates 2000 oxen, and every one of these pays three VINTEES, except certain polled oxen without horns, which never pay anything in any part of the realm.[ [585] — NAO HA NENHU MANIMETO NEM MERCADARYAS.][ [586] — The original (itself a copy) has "NESTA TERRO NAO SE SERVEM DE BESTAS PERA CARREGUAS." I think that the words SE NAO must have been accidentally omitted before DE BESTAS, and have ventured so to render the passage.]
Outside these two cities are fields and places richly cultivated with wheat and gram and rice and millet, for this last is the grain which is most consumed in the land; and next to it betel (BETRE), which is a thing that in the greater part of the country they always eat and carry in the mouth.
