The Indian ones

y Although under official dominance of the Muslims, the

Indians had always been in charge of the smaller details of normal life, including commerce and politics. y In these regards, Ala-ud-din used to complain: Indians still make war to each other, they hunt together, they even pay taxes to their land-owners, give parties, drink wine and some of them refuse to pay any sort of tribute . y Indian collaborators (tax recollecters or tribute payers) acted just as the Muslims did when in times of the weakening of the Sultanate. y The resurging of the Indian kingdoms was stronger in South India, because the Sultanate had never been as strong there. Just as in Rajputana, where the Rajput kings had conserved a higher authority among clans, who understood them as rebells.

y Their own side, Orissa, Madurai and Assam had never

been under Muslim control. y This, though, impede them to later play a bigger role in the cultural developmet of India.

y The Rajputs were fearless Indians who always resisted the y

y y y

Muslim power. They had built two great fortresses in Chitor and Ranthambor, which soon became points of resistance, blocking the supplying routs of the Sultanate, which connected south to north, including the Deccan and Central India. However, the fortresses could not resist forever and were finally taken by the Muslims. Their chiefs ran away and hide in the mountains and the dessert. Their resisting attitude granted them a place in the Epic Stories of India.

y As soon as the Sultanate started its decadence, two

new Rajput clans (the Mewars and the Marwars) erected two new kingdoms that would enter History as the Udaipur and the Johdpur. y They were not exactly kingdoms, because they were the result of confederation of several clans whose leaders were taken more as chiefs than as sovereign kings. y However, as soon as they were politically settled, the Rajput chiefs implemented the traditional cast system and issued strict marriage laws to preserve the purity of their family and of their cast.

y Since the majority of the people were not Rajput, a

natural relation between the higher casts, the race and the lineage was established. y The primogeniture right to command was , therefore, established to decrease the chances of a usurper getting mixing in. y The army became a fundamental part of the Rajput structure. To form it, there was a cam system.

y Vijajangaar was even more powerful than the Rajputs, y

y y

although they didn t develop a Politic as sophisticated. It was called the Forsaken Empire by the novel writer Robert Sewell, who was the first British to take it into consideration ad research about it. However, due to that discovery it is now the better known Empire of the Indian middle age. Its novelty came from the fact that, different to that which happened in the Muslim kingdoms of the epoch, Vijajanagar didn t sponsor historians and writers to tell their story. Most of the things known about them come from foreigners, other culture historians and travelers as well as from carvings in their walls which allow a subjective reconstruction of the kingdom.

y Their political structure exercised little influence.

Thus, Vijayangar was a sort of complete opposite to the Sultanate of Dehli which influenced many further kingdoms in the centuries to come including the Moguls, the Maharathas and even the British.

y This Kingdom had an old origin in the dismembering

of the Indian politics caused by Ala-ud-din and Muhammad ibn Tighluqs conquests. y Ca. 1330, several Indian chiefs that had been forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Sultan, rose up against the Muslim governor of Kampili, which was one of the regions in which the Deccan had been divided. y The Muslim governor had the impression that all India had stood up and that he was alone. To gain popularity, he ceded the control of some of his territory to two Indian brothers: Harihara and Bukka, sons of the former Indian ruler of Devagira.

y The only condition was them to convert to Islam.

Which they did. However, as soon as they stabilized the region they abandoned their brand new religion and declared their independence, baptizing their Kingdom as Vijayangar: The City of Victory in 1336. y Harihara (R.I.P. 1357) became the King and Bukka his minister who succeeded the latter (R.I.P 1377). y Vijayangar was respected and allied by many smaller kingdoms and towns because they were seen as symbols of rebellion vs. the Muslims. y Religion played a major factor for that.

y However, they adopted from the Sultanate that which

they considered good and usable for politics. y At the same time, Viyajangar expanded at costs of the Muslims (seen as liberated territories) but also in detriment of some Indian kingdoms, mainly Hoysala. In some occasions, even Muslim archers fought at their side. y There was a tendency at the level of the people to see Vijayangar as paladins of Hinduism, because their main enemy became the Bahmanis.

y The Kingdom seemed to be everlasting. y 1 Century after the enthronement of the two brothers,

surged another very important ruler for the kingdom: Krshna Deva Raya (1509 1529) who was able to reunite the Kingdom in a period of crisis in which it had fallen after the bad administrations of Mallikarjuna (1446 1465) and Virupaka (1465 1484).

y Vijayangara is considered a military state, because it

had a constant army (This was copied from the Sultanate), and a brutal legal system with cruel punishment for the disobedient. y Paes, the Portuguese that had contact to the Kingdom and compare the capitol city with Rome, claimed that Krshna had a million man army who were always ready for war everywhere it was needed. y From the Muslims and Arab merchants, they took the fire weaponry and the canyons.

y The three main temples constructed during their time

were: Kanchipuram, Chidambaram and Madurai. y Parallel, Portuguese architects were used in the designs of canalization and irrigation systems. y Vajayangar fomented trading with Europe and established friendly relations with their travelers, who they used to direct the people in times of construction.

y Krshna s ideosincracy: y A king must improve the ports of his country and foster

trading in such a way that horses, elephants, precious stones, fine woods, pearls and any other product can be freely traded . y Besides that, Vijayangar exported rice, sugar, condiments and spices, and textile products. y A king may rest his hand on his chest and peacefuly rest if he has chosen Brahamans to govern their strength, because a Brahaman will never abandon their post even in times of danger and even when in conflicts with the ksatriyas or sudras . y Sivaism flourished during his reign opposing Buddhism and Jainism. The ruler was seen as a mere viceroy, while Siva himself was the king.

y Vijayangar could only bedefeated after the Muslims

organized a sort of Muslim Confederated army in 1565.