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Eternal India
encyclopedia
LURE - THRU THE AGES
*
VishnuVardhana
(1106-1141)
(Queen Shantala died in 1131)
*
Narasimha I
(1141-1173)
*
Ballalall
(1173-1220)
*
Narasimha II
(1220-1235)
*
Somesvara (at Kannanore)
(1235-1254)
*
Narasimha III
(1254-1292)
*
Ballala III
(1291-1342)
*
Ballala IV
(1343-1343)
Vishnuvardhana 1106-1141
His reign is packed with glorious military
campaigns; he captured Talakadu and Kolara
in 1116 and assumed the title of
Talakadukonda'
and built two temples - Kirthi-
narayana temple (Talakadu) and Vijayanaray-
ana (Belur); defeated Kongalvas; captured
Hanagal, Uchchangi and Bankapura; he was a
disciple of Ramanujacharya and embraced
Shrivaishnavism; his queen Shanataladevi was
well versed in all fields of Art; he was suc-
ceeded by his son Narasimha.
Ballalall
1173-1220 A.D.: He expanded his
authority from the Kaveri in the south to the
Malaprabha in the north. He successfully
fought
against the Yadavas in the north and the Cho-
las in the south.
"The Hoysala temples were not the works
of a builder, but those of art craftsmen, such as
the sandal wood carver, the ivory worker,
the metal caster and also the goldsmith”.
(Percy Brown). The same authority considers
(Dorasamudra) as
"one of the most remark-
able monuments ever produced by the hand of
man"
and as
"the supreme climax of Indian
architecture."
Decline
Practically the last ruler was Ballala III. In
his reign (1291-1342), he had to face the inva-
sions of Malik Kafur and Mahmud Bin Tugh-
laq and also wage a war with the Sultan of
Madura, in which he Jost his life. The founders
of Vijayanagara stepped into his shoes and
stemmed the tide of foreign invasions.
* Ghazni, a principality of Afghanistan,
came to prominence in 977 when a
Turkish nobleman annexed the adjoin-
ing parts of Central Asia and the Trans-
Indus regions of the Shahiya kingdom.
His son Mahmud (997 - 1030) was the
most famous Sultan of this dynasty.
*
He was a great plunderer of the wealth
of Indian cities and temples. Between
1001 and 1027 he raided North India 17
times and carried away immense
wealth on elephants, camels and
horses. He plundered the towns of
Punjab, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Sindh,
Kanauj, Malwa, Gujarat and Saurash-
tra. His plundering incursions took him
even across the desert to Somnath. He
drained the wealth of the country and of
its military resources to a terrible ex-
tent.
*
The Indian rulers were too divided by
mutual feuds to resist the incursions of
this invader.
MAHMUD GHAZNI 9
77
-1030 A.D
*
The sack of Somnath is described in a
13th Century account from an Arab
source, A1 Kazwini:
"When the Sultan
went to wage religious war against In-
dia, he made great efforts to capture and
destroy Somnath in the hope ihat the
Hindus would become Muhammadans.
He arrived there in the middle of De-
cember 1025 A.D. The Indians made a
desperate resistance. They would go
weeping and crying for help into the
temple and then issue forth to battle and
fight till all were killed. The number of
slain exceeded 50,000. The king looked
upon the idol with wonder and gave or-
ders for the seizing of the spoil and the
appropriation of its treasures. There
were many idols of gold and silver and
vessels set with jewels all of which had
been sent there by the greatest person-
ages of India. The value of the things
found in the temple and of the idols ex-
ceeded 20,000 dinars...."
The significance of Mahmud's raids as
paving the way for further attacks from
the north-west was not grasped. The
Rajput clans continued to fight each
other and were totally unprepared when
Mohammed Ghori appeared 150 years
later. He came to establish a kingdom
and not merely to loot.
Mahmud Ghazni - wept at the thought
of leaving behind his enormous plunder
on his death.