PREFACE. THE Deccan may be roughly described as that portion of Southern India which is bounded by the Vindhya Mountains and the River Godavery to the North, and by the Tungabadhra and Kistna Rivers to the South; the Gháts or mountain ranges which skirt the seacoast on either side being the Eastern and Western limits. It embraces an area about equal in extent to that of Great Britain and Ireland, and is a high-lying plateau with an elevation of from 1000' to 2000' above the sea. Previous to the Mahomedan invasion there exists no authentic record of the history of the Deccan beyond inscriptions and architectural remains. It is known that it contained rich and flourishing Kingdoms, but we know little of the conditions of the country, beyond what can be gathered from a name, a grant, a date or a coin. The Mahomedans did not venture South of the Vindhyas until the end of the 13th century. Their armies, commanded by generals of the Delhi Sultans, met with but little effectual resistance. But though they marched through the Deccan to the Southernmost limits of the Indian Peninsula, their invasions were for the purpose of plunder and not of occupation. They bent but they did not break; and as soon as the foreign army retired, the native Hindoo States at once sprang back to independence. Although there was a Mahomedan Governor at Deogiri (Dowlatabad), there was but a slender connecting link between him and Delhi. Towards the end of the first half of the 14th century this link was broken by the tyranny and oppression of Sultan Mahomed Toghlak; the Mahomedan generals and governors in the Deccan revolted; distance and internal dissensions prevented all interference on the part of the Delhi Sultans, and the result was that an independent Mahomedan Kingdom was established in the Deccan which lasted for more than 300 years. Of this Kingdom, subsequently divided into five, there exists no connected or continuous history. To Ferishta we owe almost all that we know of this period, and the information he gives us is to be found scattered, and in a greatly condensed form, in the various histories of India. A historian, however voluminous his work may be, when treating of a country as large as India is, with its huge population and its numerous races and peoples, has neither time nor space to give more than a broad outline. The interest centers round certain prominent figures, but outside this circle everything is confused. There is a luxuriant Eastern jungle of change names and events which must be recorded, but which like meteors, simply flash across the eye, and then disappear leaving no trace behind. Occasionally these broad outlines have been filled in. Historians such as Tod, Wilks and Grant Duff, have cleared pieces of this huge jungle, and have enclosed each with a ring fence. This has been done for Rajputana, for Mysore and for the Mahrattas, but has not yet been attempted for the Deccan. I was first struck with the necessity of a work of this kind by a conversation with the son of a Hyderabad Nobleman who had just finished his studies in the Nizam's College. I asked him who was the first of the Bahmanee Sultans of Gulburga, and he said that he did not know there had been any. He was equally ignorant of the fate of the last King of Golconda, although the remains of the old royal fortress are within an hour's drive of the city where he lived! In our Indian schools and colleges we teach the broad outlines of Indian history, but we pay very little attention to the details of the history of the different provinces. Now it seems to me that it is as essential for a Deccan boy to know something of the early history of that part of the country in which he lives, as it is for him to know about Akbar, Aurungzebe, Clive or Warren Hastings. In the same way a Poonah boy should be thoroughly grounded in the history of the Mahrattas, and a Bangalore boy in that of Mysore. In the schools of Europe |