Page:Madras District Gazetteers - Anantapur.pdf/36

Tanjore country. Rajardja I. of that dynasty, who began to rule in 985, claims to have seized ‘Nulambapddi,! which seems to be a variant of the name Nolambavddi, and there are two Tamil inscrip- tions at Hémavati,® one of which is dated in the reign of Kuléttunga- Chola.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Western Chalukyas, whose capital from about 1070 was at Kalyani in what is now the Nizam’s Dominions, were the rulers of the district. Three inscrip- tions of Vikramdéditya VI. of this line, who was king from 1076 to 1126, occur on the rocks near the top of the Gooty fort.

Towards the end of the twelfth century the Western Chalukyas were overthrown by two of their own feudatories, the Hoysala Ballalas of Dvd4rasamudra (the modern Hal¢bid in Mysore) and the Yadavas of Dévagiri, now known as Daulat4ba4d. An inscription of the Hoysala king Vira-Balldla II. (1191 to about 1212) at Hémavati? dated 1205-6 records a gilt to the Nolambesyara temple there, which is probably the same as the present Doddésvara shrine, and in an inscription at Harihar in Mysore territory‘ this king claims to have taken Gooty. A little later an officer of the Yadava king Singhana (1210—1247) is recorded as having conquered the same place’.

About 1310, a year which is one of the great landmarks in South Indian chronicles, the advance of the Muhammadans from the north began to seriously threaten the very existence of all Hindu dominion in the south. Malik Kafur, the famous general of Alla-ud-din of the Khilji dynasty of Delhi, swept into the Decean with an immense force, captured Orangal (Warangal) in the Nizam’s Dominions and took and sacked Dvd4rasamudra. Two years later his armies again marched south and Dévagiri fell. Both the Hoysalas and YAdavas were practically extinguished.

Anarchy followed, Musalman governors, representatives of the old royal families and local chiefs struggling for supremacy, until out of the confusion arose the great Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, which from its capital near Hampi (in the Hospet taluk of Bellary) for two centuries stemmed the ‘tide of Muhammadan advance.

‘1g, Ind, Enscra., tii, 7. 2Nos, 117 and 118 of 1899 In the Government Epigraphist’s records. 3 No. 122 of 1899 in the same records, 4 Bombay Gazetteer, i., Pt. 2, 505. 6 pbid,, 524,