Thread by @syedurahman

Vijayanagar Kingdom, after a spate of losses against Bahmani empire and after being tired of paying tributes to its powerful neighbor was now under pressure to come up with some strategy to defeat the Bahmnis.
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The Vijayanagar kings and generals had lost to the Bahmani empire from the day one and despite a few small victories of their own, had always felt particularly weak to compete against the emperors first at Gulbarga and then Bidar.

Even in beginning of rule of Sultan Alauddin Ahmad II, he was handed down a crushing defeat by Bahmani army under the command of Muhammad Khan. He had to clear tributes for multiple years and had to gift hundreds of his best musicians, dancers and artists to their historic foes.

He thought that he would be able to humiliate the Bahmanis when Prince Muhammad Khan raised the banner of revolt against his older brother, by supporting the rebel prince. But the Sultan, by leading his forces, ensured that not just the prince and his allies were crushed, he was

...also mollycoddled and promised never to rebel against his brother, who had proved to be more kind than anyone in the Indian history. This had dashed all the hopes of the Vijayanagar king, Deva Raya II to ever defeat the Bahmanis and avenge the humiliation suffered by him.

While many people have tried to project some small successes of the Vijayanagar forces against the Bahmanis, but those were very small and insignificant. While Bahmanis had ravaged their capital and much of the Vijayanagar kingdom, till now, in the history of the Bahmani empire,

...they had never dared to come close to either Gulbarga or Bidar. JDB Gribble says, “Although during the last hundred years the Hindoos had been sometimes successful, the final issue of every conflict had been in favour of the Mahomedans”.

He says that while the boundaries of the two had remained the same, but it was more to do with the fact that the Vijayanagar had a massive advantage as far as population was concerned.

JDB Gribble says that Deva Raya II “summoned a council of his principal officers and Brahmins, and why it was that with such infinitely greater resources in men and treasure than the Mahomedans, his armies should so constantly be defeated.

“Some said the Almighty has decreed a superiority of Mussulmans over the Hindoos for thirty thousand years, or more yet to come, which was plainly foretold by their Scriptures; that the Hindoos were generally subdued by them. Others said that the superiority of the Mussalmans

arose from two causes; one all their horses being strong, and able to bear more fatigue than the weak, lean animals of the Carnatic; the other, owing to a great body of excellent archers; beign always kept up by the Bahmane Sultan, of whom the Raja had but few in his army”.

Deva Raya was sensible enough to see justice of latter opinion, accordingly resolved to employ large body of Mahomedan mercenaries”.

Excerpts from Syed Ubaidur Rahman's forthcoming book, Muslim Emperors, Kings & their Empire: From Bahmani Empire to Tipu Sultan.
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