The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (63 page)

Ferishta on Parthal, the farmer’s daughter, with whom Devaraya I of Vijayanagar got involved: ‘There resided in the town of Mudgal a farmer, who was blessed with a daughter of such exquisite beauty, that the creator seemed to have united all his powers in making her perfect.’ An old Brahmin told Devaraya about her, and the raja then sent opulent presents to her through the Brahmin and sought her for his harem. This overjoyed the girl’s parents, but she refused the offer, as she did not want to be secluded in the royal harem, where even her parents would not be allowed to visit her. The Brahmin then returned to Vijayanagar, and told the raja about what had transpired. But the rejection by Parthal only inflamed the raja’s passion, and he raided Mudgal to seize her. But by then Parthal and her parents had fled to Bahmani kingdom. The affair led to yet another war between Vijayanagar and the Sultanate.

Harihara and Bukka, according to Sewell, belonged to the Kuruba caste of Hindus, a warrior caste mostly living in Karnataka.

The Vijayanagar army in camp was found to have 120,000 infantry, 18,000 cavalry, and 150 elephants, reports Nuniz.

Ambassadors in medieval times enjoyed virtually the same status as they do in modern times. According to Wassaf, a fourteenth-century Indian chronicler, ‘To bring trouble on an ambassador is, under every system of religious faith, altogether opposed to the principles of law, social observance and commonsense.’

Battuta on he being confronted by brigands: ‘I threw myself to the ground and surrendered, as they do not kill those who do that.’

A popular medieval Indian saying: All kings go to hell.

When Hasnak, a high official favoured by Mahmud Ghazni, was disfavoured and executed by Masud, Mahmud’s successor, the victim’s mother commented: ‘What a fortune is my son’s! Sultan Mahmud gave him this world, and Sultan Masud the next!’

Abu Zaid, an early medieval Arabic writer: When a king of Sri Lanka dies, his body is carried on a very low carriage so that his head, placed at the back, touches the ground and his hair drags in the dust. A woman follows the carriage with a broom and ‘sweeps the dust [of the road] on to the face of the corpse, and cries out, “O men, behold! This man yesterday was your king … See now what he is reduced to.”’

A medieval Indian saying: ‘A common man with faults harms only himself with his faults, but through the faults of a king all his subjects too suffer destruction.’

Battuta: In Kerala ‘there are twelve infidel sultans, some of them strong with armies numbering fifty thousand men, and others weak with armies of three thousand. Yet there is no discord whatever between them, and the strong does not desire to seize the possessions of the weak.’

The land revenue assignments, given to soldiers and officers by the Delhi sultans, instead of cash salaries, were in turn often reassigned by the assignees. ‘It was the practice of certain persons in those days to buy up these assignments,’ notes Afif. ‘The purchasers of these assignments carried on a traffic in them, and gaining good profit, many of them got rich and made fortunes.’

Just as Muslim nobles kept Hindu mistresses, sometimes, though rarely, Hindu officers kept Muslim mistresses.