Rajasekar Janarthan
Kumara Kampanna of Vijayanagara Empire.
I am reproducing some poems before the detailed account:
Gangadevi's ( the Princess of Vijayanagara and wife of Kumara Kampanna in her book) Madura Vijayam declares the Muslim rule to be the pain to the three worlds:
O mighty and brave king Kumara Kampanna! Go forth then, and without further delay uproot from my lands this Kingdom of turushkas, pain to the three worlds. Go forth my dear Lord, and securing your victory, establish One Hundred Victory Pillars in middle of the famed Rama-setu!
On the condition of Madurai under the Muslim rule, Gangadevi writes:
I very much lament for what has happened to the groves in Madhura. The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at the points.
In the highways which were once charming with the sounds of anklets of beautiful women, are now heard ear-piercing noises of Brahmins being dragged, bound in iron fetters.
...The waters of Tambraparni which were once white with sandal paste rubbed away from the breasts of charming girls are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by the miscreants
We were taught the History of Delhi as History of India. We hail the rulers of Delhi as great kings, but they were in-fact the looters and smugglers of enormous wealth from other territories. One such King of Delhi is Alauddin Khilji and he was the Looter of Madurai as well as several kingdoms in South.
At the same time our text books are blind to Several great heroes from the South and they have faded from our memories despite the enormity of their sacrifices and spectacular of their successes.
It is widely assumed that Southern India escaped the brunt of the ravages perpetrated by Muslim invaders and Islamic rule as was experienced elsewhere in the country, due to its great distance from the focal point of Muslim power in Delhi. However, if one were to dive deep into the history of South India, one will realize that this is simply not true.
Many of the ancient classical ruling dynasties of the South have been wiped out without a trace. Madurai Pandya dynasty is one who had ruled for several centuries before and had nurtured the literature, philosophy, art, and architecture in Southern India.
These kingdoms were among the most prosperous kingdoms in the world, as can be seen in references given to them in numerous chronicles and testimonies. But, the extinguishing of these great cultures at the hands of the invading Muslim armies is not well known to many even today.
It is important to bear in mind that the Islamist invading armies were aided via espionage and subversion by several Sufi ‘saints’ who had traveled into the South for preaching.
In many cases as with the Yadavas at Deogiri and Pandyas at Madurai, the very Sufi preachers they had patronized acted as spies providing intelligence to the foreign invaders.
But, what is true is that the character of native Hindu resistance to the depredations of the Muslim invasion was more tenacious than elsewhere. This was undoubtedly aided by the topography of the South, which would have presented a greater challenge for any invader to surmount.
It’s a telling commentary on the state of the Hindu nation that we have collectively forgotten the titanic struggles of our forebears, who shed their blood in the millions to defend the very land we walk upon. In particular, several great heroes from the Southern realms have faded from our memories despite the enormity of their sacrifices and spectacularity of their successes.
Tamil Country
To place these epochal events in proper perspective, one needs to go back in time to understand the political scenario in early Medieval Peninsular India.
Southern Rulers during 11th and 12th Centuries:
In their heyday during the 11th and 12 centuries AD, the Cholas of Tamil region ruled over a vast swathe of territory ranging from East Central India to Lanka and Malaya and were among the world’s mightiest kingdoms of the time. Their rule saw an era of abundance and prosperity, thanks to enlightened forms of governance and taxation systems and promotion of trade by bringing stability to sea trade routes.
They were also master temple builders and the monuments that still stand today rank among the greatest examples of Hindu architectural ingenuity. Their decline in the latter half of the 13th century lead to the resurrection of the fortunes of the Pandya Dynasty of the same region, who were formerly subordinate to the Cholas.
The Pandyas were among the 4 ruling kingdoms of Peninsular India of that time and ruled in an area encompassing most of modern day TN and Kerala. The Hoysalas ruled over most of what’s now Karnataka, while the Kakatiyas ruled over the lands of Telangana and Andhra. The 4th kingdom of the Yadavas ruled over most of the upper bounds of Peninsular India, in an area from Goa to Maharashtra right up to the Vindhya Mountains.
The last great Pandyan king Maravarman Kulasekhara Pandya I ascended the throne in AD 1268 and ruled for 42 years, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity. After his death, the infighting between his 2 sons, who sought to rule over his kingdom, lead to conditions precipitating the first Muslim invasion of Southern India.
Invasions in Pandya Kingdom:
Having brought the Yadava and Kakatiya kingdoms into submission, and Having humbled the Hoysalas thus, Malik Kafur pressed southwards, setting his sights on Madurai, where following the death of the great Pandyan King Maravarman Kulasekhara, his sons Sundara and Vira Pandya were locked in a fratricidal war over their right to rule as successor.
The late Pandya monarch had ushered in great prosperity over his realm and amassed great wealth in the 42 years of his rule. With this attractive target in mind, Malik Kafur pressed his army to the Pandya capital, leaving behind an enormous trail of massacres and destruction, the likes of which had never been witnessed before in the entire history of Southern India.
The great temple cities of Kanchipuram, Chidambaram, Madurai, Srirangam, and Rameshwaram in the Tamil country were completely devastated by the Mohammedan onslaught. As our genteel Sufi Bard Aamir Khusrau triumphantly records that Malik Kafur seized over 500 elephants, 5000 horses, and over 500 mounds of gems of every imaginable manifestation (rubies, pearls, diamonds, emeralds etc.).The warring Pandyan brothers, meanwhile, upon hearing the fate that befell the Hoysala King, set their differences aside, went into hiding and continued to wage guerrilla war against the invading Jihadi army.
While Malik Kafur was ultimately unsuccessful in forcing the Pandyas to pay tribute, he did return to Delhi with a colossal booty from his campaigns in the South, in addition to leaving behind a garrison of soldiers in Madurai, the Pandyan capital. This would later lead to the genesis of the first Muslim ruled state in Southern India.
In AD 1330, with the ancient Yadavas, Kakatiyas, and Kampilideva dynasties all dead and gone and the Pandyas having degenerated into numerous petty feuding chieftains, the Hoysala Monarch Veera Ballala III was the last remaining major Hindu ruler in the Deccan and Southern India. A calamity had been unleashed upon the South by the invasions of the Muslim Sultanate over the previous 30 years, resulting in the wiping out of several ancient Southern dynasties, demolition of countless ancient temples, and death and displacement of thousands of Hindus.
Madurai Sultanate:
Meanwhile, in Madurai, the erstwhile capital of the Tamil Pandya rulers, the local Muslim governor Ahsan Shah quickly achieved immense notoriety in the 50 years of its brutal existence by the barbaric treatment it meted out to the native Tamil Hindus.
Among the numerous sultans of Madurai, the most notorious Sultan for his cruelty was Ghiyasuddin Al Damaghani, who crowned himself the Madurai Sultan after murdering Ahsan Shah’s son. A particularly blood curdling eye witness account of his cruelty by the famed Mohammedan traveler and chronicler Ibn Batutta (who was touring India then) is as follows,
”…The next morning, the Hindu prisoners were divided into four sections and taken to each of the four gates of the great catcar. There, on the stakes they had carried, the prisoners were impaled. Afterwards, their wives were killed and tied by their hair to these pales. Little children were massacred on the bosoms of their mothers and their corpses left there. Then, the camp was raised…
“This is shameful conduct such as I have not known any other sovereign guilty of. It is for this that God hastened the death of Ghiyath-eddin [Ghiyath-ud-din]. One day whilst the Kadhi (Kazi) and I were having our food with [Ghiyath-ud-din], the Kazi to his right and I to his left, an infidel was brought before him accompanied by his wife and son aged seven years. The Sultan made a sign with his hand to the executioners to cut off the head of this man; then he said to them in Arabic: ‘and the son and the wife.’ They cut off their heads and I turned my eyes away. When I looked again, I saw their heads lying on the ground…
“I was another time with the Sultan Ghiyath-eddin when a Hindu was brought into his presence. He uttered words I did not understand, and immediately several of his followers drew their daggers. I rose hurriedly, and he said to me: ‘Where are you going?” I replied: ‘I am going to say my afternoon (4 o’clock) prayers.’ He understood my reason, smiled, and ordered the hands and feet of the idolater to be cut off. On my return I found the unfortunate swimming in his blood…”
Needless to say, this was the general character of rule of the Madurai Sultanate and Islamist rulers of the South, though Ghiyasuddin Al Damaghani ranks amongst its most depraved. The piteous condition of the Hindus in Tamil country was later immortalized in words of the Goddess of Madurai in the famous poem Maduravijayam composed by a Vijayanagar Princess.
Hoysala Raja Veera Ballala III – the unsung Hero:
The aging Hoysala Raja Veera Ballala III was a battle hardened veteran. Having ascended the throne in AD 1292, he had made his mark suppressing numerous revolts in his kingdom and fended off a Yadava invasion in AD 1303. He had also dabbled his hand in siding with one of the warring Pandya brothers of the Tamil country. But it was against the Muslim conquerors starting from Malik Kafur to Khusrau Khan to Muhammad Bin Tughlak, that he proved his real mettle as the sole torchbearer of the Southern Hindu resistance of to the Jihad of the Delhi Sultanate.
Taking advantage of the chaos in Delhi post Alauddin Khilji’s death, he had swiftly re-established his control over the Kingdom and ventured into Tamil country, building outposts setting up a strong chain of defense against invasions from the North. With deft strategic skills, he prevented a Muslim garrison being set up within his territory. He ruled from three capitals, two of them in the present Tamil country after his main capital in Dwarasamudram. He managed to create a strong Hindu resistance to the Islamist depredations that had ravaged the South.
After hearing about the atrocities meted out to Hindus in Madurai by Al Damaghani and troubled by the Madurai Sultanate’s repeated attacks on his territory, in AD 1342 the 80 year old King Veera Ballala III assembled a large army of over 100,000 soldiers to launch an attack on Madurai. He had one of his capitals in Kannur (nearby present day Srirangam, in Tiruchirappalli district, TN), which was strategically located towards the North of Madurai, en route to the core Hoysala territory. This was to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Madurai sultanate from the former Kakatiya regions, which had become part of the Sultanate in Delhi.
In Kannur, the Sultanate army numbered a mere 6000 of which as Ibn Batuta remarks, ‘over half of them were worthless’. This was quickly crushed by the far larger Hoysala force under Veera Ballala III. In an inexplicably stupid move, however, Al Damaghani was allowed to retreat to Madurai as Veera Ballala III made his way to the ancient city, intending to seize it and end the first Muslim state in the South for good.
The old King Veera Ballala III then gave an ultimatum to Sultan Al Damaghani to surrender, which was read out in the prayer congregation of the main mosque in Madurai. The Sultan knowing that his end was near resolved to not surrender and decided to give one last desperate attempt to fight.
Under the cover of darkness, as the Hoysala camps slept around the walls of Madurai, Al Damaghani and a small force of loyal Muslims set out and fell upon the sleeping Hoysala army. In the panic and confusion, the aged Hoysala Monarch Veera Ballala III attempted to mount a horse and flee but was captured by Al Damaghani’s nephew Nasiruddin near the gates of Madurai. This was a turning moment in the history of South India.
The elderly king was then taken to Sultan Al Damaghani. In apparent consideration for his status, the Hoysala Monarch was treated kindly by the Muslim ruler while being asked to give his riches and elephants in return for his safe release. After his wealth was extorted from him, the 80 year old Hoysala Raja Veera Ballala III, the last great Hindu ruler of the South, was murdered, his skin stuffed with straw and displayed on the gates of Madurai for the whole world to see. Thus, passed the last great torchbearer of Hindu resistance to the Islamic Jihad in the entire Indian subcontinent.
When apparently the last hope from Ballala was killed and displayed on the gates of Madurai, a new revolution was brewing on the banks of the Tungabhadra River further up North, where two brothers Harihara and Bukka would forever change the fate of South India and Vijayanagara Empire and reconstructed the destructed temples and bring back the peace of Tamil Country, thanks to Sri Ranganathar’s stay at Tirumala Tirupati.
From resources citing reference to
1. South India and Her Muhammadan Invaders – by S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, published 1921.
2. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History – by Peter Jackson, published 1999.
3. Tarikh i Alai – by Syed Aamir Khusrau, contemporary Moslem historian scholar at Alauddin Khilji’s court in 14th century.
4. Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi by Ziauddin Barani, contemporary Moslem historian scholar at Muhammad Bin Tughlak’s court in 14th century Delhi.
5. Ibn Battuta’s chronicles of travels in Southern India, 14th century.
