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The first Bahmani-Vijaynagra war (1362-1366)

Samandri

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In the early years of Sultan Muhammad Shah's reign, in 1362 AD, Kanya Nayak of Tilangana joined forces with Bukka of Vijaynagar to wrest territories adjacent to Raichur and Mudgal as far as river Krishna from Bahmani sultanate. The Raye of Tilangana sent his son , Vinayek Dev, from Warangal with a large army consisting of infantry as well as cavalry, towards the fortress of Kaulas, while Vijaynagar sent twenty thousand troops to Kanya's help. Against these the Sultan sent Amir-ul-Umara Bahadur Khan, son of Ismail Mukh Afghan, Azam Humayun and Safdar Khan Sistani along with the army of Berar and Bidar. The main Royal force met the allied Tilangana-Vijaynagar near Kaulas, defeated it and persued it as far as the gates of Warangal. Kanya Nayak was forced to pay one lac of hons as tribute and had over twenty-five elephants as indemnity of war.

Next year Raye of Tilangana approached Firuz Shah Tughlaq, requesting him to ask those in Gujarat and Malwa to attack the Deccan and promising aid to the invaders by his own armies as well as by those of Vijaynagar. The Sultan now lost no time in invading Tilangana in full force He ordered Safdar Khan Sistani to go to Warangal , capital of Tilangana, with the army of Berar and marched right up to the place himself. Not expecting help from Raye of Vijaynagar or any other quarter, Kanya Nayak begged Bahadur Khan Afghan to solicit the King saying that what he had done in the past against the Sultan was owing to pressure on the part of Raye of Vijaynagar to take his side, and now he fell on the mercy of Sultan Muhammad Shah. He accepted all the conditions imposed on him and had to give to Sultan 13 crores of hons, three hundred elephants, two hundred horses as well as town of Golconda and its dependencies. Bahmani Sultan also gained possession of Turquoise throne from Warangal.

Soon after, Bukka, the Raye of Vijaynagar, started invasion of Bahmani sultanate with eight thousand cavalry , nine lacs (Nine hundred thousands) of infantry and three thousand of Elephants, making Adoni his headquarters. The Bahmani armies of Berar and Bidar had gone through an arduous campaign in Tilangana recently, so the Sultan allowed some respite and ordered Khan Muhammad to go to south with army of Daulatabad. In the meantime Raya had crossed Tungabahadra, captured Mudgal, which had been garrisoned by barely 8000 soldiers, putting to the sword men, women and children who came in his way. On hearing this, Sultan crossed the Krishna. The very appearance of Sultan at Mudgal was enough to put the Vijayanagar army to flight and the Sultan entered it triumphantly. He killed seventy thousands of the enemy and captured two thousands elephants, three hundred gun carriages, seven hundred Arab steeds and one bejeweled throne - all this beside the booty which fell to the nobles.

After passing of rainy season, Sultan moved southwards with a large army and , and crossing the Tangabhadra, entered the territory of Vijaynagar. Bukka hearing of this movement , gathered togather practically all the fighting forces of his empire and came out himself to give battle to the Bahmani army. He appointed Bhojmal Rai commander in chief of his forces which amounted to forty thousand cavalry and five lacs (500,000) of infantry. Sultan Muhammad on his part crossed the Tungbhadra near the present town of Siruguppa with fifteen thousand cavalry and fifty thousand infantry, out of which he ordered Khan Muhammad to advance with forward with ten thousand cavalry, thirty thousand infantry and the whole of the artillery when the opposing forces were barely 12 kroh from one another. The battle was joined some where near the village of Kautalam. The center of the Bahmani army was led by Khan Muhammad, right flank by Musa Khan Afghan and the left flank by Isa Khan Afghan. The two flanks were in great danger when both the commanders were killed by musket balls and it seemed that Bahmani army would soon be routed. Sultan Muhammad Shah, however, appeared with three thousand cavalry at the nick of time. Terrible hand-to-hand fight ensued, Khan Muhammad's elephant, sher-i-shikar, advanced into the enemy lines, killing the commander-in-chief , Bhojmal Rai outright. The battle ended in defeat of Vijayanagaris.

After spending a week at Adoni mopping up the remnant of Vijaynagaris, the Sultan marched to the city of Vijaynagar itself. The Rai had to recourse to Guerrilla warfare. Due to which, the Sultan preferred to retreat than to follow up a campaign which might end disastrously. On the way back, Rai's Guerrilla forces kept on harassing Sultan's forces. But when the Sultan was in his own lands after crossing the Tangabhadra, he ordered the army to stop and attack the Rai's camp in full force where he was engaged in music , dancing and drinking. Raya had to retreat , not stopping till his capital was reached.

Bukka now called together the chiefs of his kingdom and took counsel from them. They were unanimous that just as his predecessor was on friendly terms with Bahman Shah so it would be far better if he were to have friendly relations with present Sultan. Envoys were therefore sent to Sultan's camp requesting peace and appealing for brotherly relations between the two neighboring states. Bukka and Kanya continued to pay tribute during the rest of Sultan's life.

(Excerpts from "Bahmanis of the Deccan" by Haroon Sherwani, from page 88 to 97)

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Tilangana ==> telengana , Raye ==> Raya,Tangabhadra==> tungabhadra
guys please stop killing us through words:-). stick to some border stories that would at least be readable.
 
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Interesting to see the prominence of Afghans in the nobility and army of Bahmani sultanate. Sultan Muhammad's Amir-ul-umara was Bahadur Khan son of Ismail Mukh Afghan (the first king of sultanate who abdicated voluntarily in favour of Hasan ganju who called himself Bahman Shah, after whom sultanate is named). In Battle against vijaynagara, the right and left flanks of the Bahmani army were commanded by two Afghans, Isa Khan and Musa Khan, who got killed during the battle. It indicates the heavy presence of Afghans in the army of Bahmanis)

The most interesting part , of-course, is helplessness of Vijaynagara and Tilangana in front of Bahmani sultanate, despite possessing huge wealth and resources and army greater than a million in case of Vijaynagara.
 
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Interesting to see the prominence of Afghans in the nobility and army of Bahmani sultanate. Sultan Muhammad's Amir-ul-umara was Bahadur Khan son of Ismail Mukh Afghan (the first king of sultanate who abdicated voluntarily in favour of Hasan ganju who called himself Bahman Shah, after whom sultanate is named). In Battle against vijaynagara, the right and left flanks of the Bahmani army were commanded by two Afghans, Isa Khan and Musa Khan, who got killed during the battle. It indicates the heavy presence of Afghans in the army of Bahmanis)

The most interesting part , of-course, is helplessness of Vijaynagara and Tilangana in front of Bahmani sultanate, despite possessing huge wealth and resources and army greater than a million in case of Vijaynagara.
Most of the number are highly exaggerated ,but the number of elephant mentioned may be true
 
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Interesting to see the prominence of Afghans in the nobility and army of Bahmani sultanate. Sultan Muhammad's Amir-ul-umara was Bahadur Khan son of Ismail Mukh Afghan (the first king of sultanate who abdicated voluntarily in favour of Hasan ganju who called himself Bahman Shah, after whom sultanate is named). In Battle against vijaynagara, the right and left flanks of the Bahmani army were commanded by two Afghans, Isa Khan and Musa Khan, who got killed during the battle. It indicates the heavy presence of Afghans in the army of Bahmanis)

The most interesting part , of-course, is helplessness of Vijaynagara and Tilangana in front of Bahmani sultanate, despite possessing huge wealth and resources and army greater than a million in case of Vijaynagara.

And I am supposed to believe that someone writing in a military analysis forum thinks that one million soldiers, 10 lakhs of them, could be controlled by the military methods of that time. And that such a force was possible to build based on the population then.

Please grow up.
 
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And I am supposed to believe that someone writing in a military analysis forum thinks that one million soldiers, 10 lakhs of them, could be controlled by the military methods of that time. And that such a force was possible to build based on the population then.

Please grow up.

Have to agree with you, 10 lack army is indeed exaggerated. Islamic scholars like Ibn Khaldun of 14th century questioned some of numbers mentioned in wars fought centuries before.

"The Muqaddimah is the earliest known work to critically examine military history. It criticizes certain accounts of historical battles that appear to be exaggerated, and takes military logistics into account when questioning the sizes of historical armies reported in earlier sources. In the Introduction to the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun directs this criticism towards to famous historians such as Al-Masudi.

As an example, Ibn Khaldun notes that Al-Masudi and other historians reported that Moses counted the Israelite army as 600,000 or more soldiers.[35] Ibn Khaldun criticizes Al-Masudi for failing to take into account certain logistics, questioning whether Egypt and Syria could have possibly held such a large number of soldiers, or whether an army of that size would be able to march or fight as a unit. He notes that the whole available territory would have been too small for such a large army, and argues that if "it were in battle formation, it would extend" several times "beyond the field of vision." He questions how two such parties could "fight with each other, or one battle formation gain the upper hand when one flank does not know what the other flank is doing,"[36] and that a coordinated battle movement in such a large group "would hardly be possible."[37] He argues that the "situation in the present day testifies to the correctness of this statement" since the "past resembles the future more than one drop of water another." He then compares it to the Persian Sasanian Empire, noting that it was far more vast than the Israelite Kingdom and yet the size of the military of the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah amounted to 120,000 troops at most (citing the 8th-century historian Sayf ibn Umar). The Muqaddimah states that if the Israelites really did have such a large army, the extent of their empire would have been far larger, as "the size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the dynasty."[36]"

Muqaddimah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Have to agree with you, 10 lack army is indeed exaggerated.
Dont pay attention to this imbecile. In 1524 Portuguese traveler, Fernao Nunes, visited Vijayanagar empire and reported its army to be 0.6 million men and 24 thousands horses. We are talking about the times when Vijaynagra was not at its peak.
A History of Modern India, 1480-1950
 
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Dont pay attention to this imbecile. In 1524 Portuguese traveler, Fernao Nunes, visited Vijayanagar empire and reported its army to be 0.6 million men and 24 thousands horses. We are talking about the times when Vijaynagra was not at its peak.
A History of Modern India, 1480-1950

It was possible to maintain such a huge army back then? I mean 600.000 is almost as same as current day Pakistan army but with 200 million population.
 
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Ridiculous numbers. Even the Mughals or Marathas or Nandas or Ashoka never managed to field so many troops. Picking some random persons guestimate or relying on victor claiming he defeated a million men etc does not make it credible.
 
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It was possible to maintain such a huge army back then? I mean 600.000 is almost as same as current day Pakistan army but with 200 million population.
Yes, Vijaynagra was a very wealthy empire. In those days, such number of men could be conscripted into military service, and Vijayanagar was very densely populated region. The ability to field such large number of infantry, is considered the main distinguishing feature of Vijayanagar empire
 
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