Page:Gódávari.djvu/51

Rh and called for help from Purushóttama, who accordingly came and besieged Rajahmundry. A Musalman army relieved that place, and about 1478 the Kulbarga king Muhammad took terrible vengeance on the Orissa country and forced Purushóttama to purchase his withdrawal by a present of valuable elephants. Kondapalle was retaken, its temple destroyed (the Bráhman priests being massacred), and a mosque erected on the site. The Kulbarga king remained three years at Rajahmundry, expelling or reducing refractory zamindars and establishing military posts. He appointed one Málik Ahmed as his viceroy, and at the end of 1480 left the district to prosecute his conquests in the south.

A few years afterwards, however, the Kulbarga kingdom was dismembered by revolutions which resulted in the formation of the three Muhammadan kingdoms of Bijápur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda in the years 1489, 1490 and 1512 respectively; and the kings of Orissa recovered this district.

In 1515, Krishna Déva, the greatest of the kings of the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, the capital of which was at Hampe in the Bellary district, and which was now at the zenith of its power, marched northwards in great strength. He took the strong fort of Udayagiri in Nellore after a siege of a year and a half, and then invested Kondavid. The king of Orissa, Pratápa Rudra, came south to relieve the latter place, and Krishna Déva quitted the siege and advanced to meet him. The two armies came face to face at 'a large river of salt water crossed by a ford' (presumably the Kistna), and Krishna Déva offered to retire six miles so that his adversary might cross the river unmolested and they might then fight on equal terms. Receiving no reply, he forded the river himself in the face of the Orissan army, losing heavily in the operation; engaged the enemy on the other side; and won a complete victory. He took Kondapalle after a siege of three months, escaladed Kondavid (capturing there the wife and son of the Orissan king and many of his nobles) and then advanced as far north as Potnúru in the Vizagapatam district, where he set up a pillar of victory. From this place he despatched several challenges to Pratápa Rudra, daring him to come and fight, and when these met with no response he eventually returned south to his own capital. He subsequently sent back Pratápa Rudra's queen and married his daughter. Before many years had passed the Muhammadans again attacked the country. The invader this time was the first king of the new dynasty of Golconda, Qutb Shah (1512-43), and the cause of the war was the assistance given by the house