Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/117



RAICHUR. A Bone of Contention.

THE old fort and city of Raichur lie in the Duab or interfluvial area between the Krishna and its principal tributary, the Tungabhadra. The scenery of this tract, the hottest part of the Deccan, would be dull and monotonous in the extreme but for the rocky hills with which it is dotted. These break the monotony of the horizon, and the toilsome ascent of any one of them is rewarded by a view to which spaciousness lends grandeur. The vast plain lies spread out in all its fertility beneath the spectator's feet, and even in the aridity of summer the heat vibrations give an appearance of variety to the expanse.

The history of the Raichur Duab is the history of the struggle between the Muhammadan kingdom of the Deccan and the Hindu kingdom of the Peninsula for supremacy in Southern India.

The fortress of Raichur was built, as an old Telugu inscription informs us, in 1294, by Gore Gangayya Ruddivaru, a servant of the Kakatiya kings of Warangal, of whose kingdom Raichur was, so far as is known, the western outpost, for no Kakatiya remains have been found further westward. The date of the foundation of the fort is interesting for two reasons. In the first place it coincides with the date assigned to the accession of Prataparudradeva II, who ascended the throne in Warangal on the abdication of his grandmother, Rudrammadevi. In the second place it coincides with the date of the first appearance of the Musalmans in the Deccan, for in 1294 Ala-ud-din Khalji, who afterwards ascended the throne of Delhi, led his daring raid on Deogir, the northern-most kingdom of the Deccan.

No chronicles enlighten us as to the considerations which led to the founding of the fort. In the absence of specific information we may be permitted to imagine the aged queen Rudrammadevi, weary of her long and lonely tenure of the reins of government, anxiously awaiting the time when her grandson would be ready to receive them from her tired grasp, and perturbed by reports of the new terror from the north, in the face of