Foreign Invasion of Medieval India - Part 4

 Continued From: The Forgotten Empires Of India: Foreign Invasion of Medieval India - Part 3

Alladin and The Cave of Wonders!

 

In the year 1293, Ali raided the Paramara kingdom in Malwa and cunningly offered the loot as an offering to Sultan Jalal-ud-din. The raid on Paramara in the name of the Sultanate was but an eyewash. During the raid, Ali was in search of a cave of wonders that would help him achieve his dream. He had heard rumours about wealthy kingdoms in the Deccan and used Paramara as a front so that he could take a closer look at the happenings in the Deccan. He found his cave of wonders in Devagiri. At the time of the Paramara raid, he learnt about the wealthy Kingdom of Devagiri (also known as Yadava Kingdom see map). Ali needed a large amount of wealth for usurping the throne of Delhi. He used Paramara as a pretext which covered-up his actual raid on Devagiri. He withheld the information about Devagiri from Jalal-ud-din .

At the time when Ali was eyeing the riches of the Deccan Kingdoms, the Deccan peninsula was ruled by three great empires; The Yadava Kingdom in Maharashtra , The Kakatiya Dynasty and the Hoysalas. Prataparudra II was the Kakatiya King and he goverened his kingdom from his capital in Warangal. Veera Ballala III of the Hoysala Dynasty ruled his kingdom from Dwarasamudram. There was also the Pandiya Kingdom in Tamilnadu which was considerably smaller than the three major dynasties and was ruled by Kulasekhara Pandyan from Madurai. The Yadava Kingdom was ruled by Ramachandra Raya from his capital in Devagiri. The covetous eyes of Ali first fell upon Devagiri; the gateway into Deccan. The rivalry between the Deccan Kingdoms was so bitter that it did not occur to any of the Kings to give support to their neighbours against the invader. They probably thought that they themselves were too far for the invading forces to attack or lived in a false sense of security that they could tackle the invaders better than their neighbour. They were also waiting for an opportunity of political turmoil in the neighbouring states which would help them to annex the enemy’s territories. It was this disunity amongst the ruling monarchs of the Deccan Kingdoms that led to the fall of the Deccan Kingdoms.

Continued On: The Forgotten Empires Of India: Foreign Invasion of Medieval India - Part 5