Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/32



A FORMER CAPITAL OF INDIA. TOWARDS the end of the twelfth century of the Christian era the Chalukyan dynasty of southern India, once overthrown and again restored, only to totter gradually to its fall, was blotted out, and its dominions, after being the prey of various petty chieftains, were united under the Yadavas, a dynasty of which the elder branch, the Hoysala Yadavas, ruled for many years at Dvaravatipura or Dhorasamudra, the ruins of which are to be found at Halebid, in the Hassan district of the Mysore State. The Yadava race was represented in the northern Deccan by Bhillama, a famous warrior who, after a severe struggle with his kinsmen in the south, established his rule throughout Maharashtra and extended his dominions southwards to the Krishna. In 1187 Bhillama founded Devagiri or Deogir and made it his capital. Here he and his descendants reigned, not ingloriously, for a century, in the course of which period they succeeded in adding Malwa to their dominions. In 1271 Ramachandra, styled Ramdeo by Muhammadan historians, the fifth in descent from Bhillama, ascended the throne in Deogir, and early in 1290, while Ramdeo was ruling at Deogir Jalal-udKiin Firuz founded the Khalji dynasty at Delhi. The Deccan was at this time no more than a name to the Musalmans of Northern India. The Arabs had long been engaged in maritime trade with the inhabitants of the Malabar coast, and Muhammadan emperors had for a century held sway over the Punjab and Hindustan, and had overrun Bengal, but no Muhammadan from the north had yet crossed the Vindhyan range or penetrated the forests of Gondwana.

Jalal-ud-din Firuz, who was an aged man when he was raised to the throne of Delhi, had a nephew, Ala-ud-din Muhammad, who was also his son-in-law, and whom the old emperor treated rather as a son than as nephew, slighting the advice of his counsellors who descried in the younger man's restless and ambitious disposition danger to the pros- pect of the peaceful descent of the crown to the natural heir. Ala-ud-din's ambition was stimulated by an unhappy marriage. The cousin