Page:Madras District Gazetteers - Anantapur.pdf/40

RAma Raja had at first superintended operations from a litter. Later, thinking to encourage his men, he had seated himself on a “rich throne set with jewels, under a canopy of crimson velvet embroi- dered with gold and adorned with fringes of pearls,” from whence he distributed money, gold and jewels to those of his followers who acquitted themselves well. Later again, he returned to his litter and it was at this moment that the Musalman cavalry charged up to his position. One of the enemy’s elephants stampeded towards him, his bearers dropped him and fled, and before he could mount a horse he was a prisoner in the enemy’s hands. He was taken before the king of Ahmadnagar, who immediately had his head cut off and raised on a long spear so that the Hindu troops might see it.

This disaster caused an instant panic among the Vijayanagar forces and they broke and fled. “ They were pursued,” says Ferishta, “by the allies with such successful slaughter that the river which ran near the field was dyed red with their blood. Itis computed on the best authorities that above 100,000 infidels were slain in the fight and during the pursuit.”

Their panic was so great that they made no attempt to rally on a fresh posttion or even to defend the hills and approaches round about their capital at Hampi. Venkatadri had been slain and of the three brothers Tirumala alone remained. He hastily returned to Vijaya- nagar and fled thence with the puppet king Sadasiva to the hill fort of Penukonda in this district, taking with him a few followers and a convoy of 550 elephants laden with treasure in gold, diamonds and precious stones valued at more than 100 millions sterling, and also the state insignia and the celebrated jewelled throne.

Deserted by their king and the commandant of their troops the people of the capital made no effort to defend themselves, and the very next day the city was looted by the hordes of the wandering gipsy tribes of the country. On the third day the victorious Muham- madans arrived, and for the next five months they set themselves deliberately to destroy everything destructible within the walls of the capital, Vijayanagar as a city was blotted out, and has never since been inhabited by any but the few cultivators who still till the fields that wind about among its deserted streets and temples. The next year Tirumala made an attempt to repopulate it but failed, and Penukonda, which had always been one of the chief strongholds of this part of the country,! became the capital of what remained of the empire.

i See the account of the place in Chapter XV below.