Here we have a whole bundle of tales and traditions to account for the origin of the great kingdom, and can take our choice. There are many others also. Perhaps the most reasonable account would be one culled from the general drift of the Hindu legends combined with the certainties of historical fact; and from this point of view we may for the present suppose that two brothers, Hindus of the Kuruba caste, who were men of strong religious feeling, serving in the treasury of the king of Warangal, fled from that place on its sack and destruction in 1323 and took service under the petty Rajah of Anegundi. Both they and their chiefs were filled with horror and disgust at the conduct of the marauding Moslems, and pledged themselves to the cause of their country and their religion. The brothers rose to be minister and treasurer respectively at Anegundi. In 1334 the chief gave shelter to Baha-ud-din, nephew of Muhammad of Delhi, and was attacked by the Sultan. Anegundi fell, as narrated by Batuta, and the Sultan retired, leaving Mallik as his deputy to rule the state. Mallik found the people too strong for him, and eventually the Sultan restored the country to the Hindus, raising to be rajah and minister respectively the two brothers who had formerly been minister and treasurer. These were Harihara I. ("Hukka") and Bukka I.

[The following shows the pedigree of this dynasty as given in the EPIGRAPHIA INDICA (iii. p. 36). Inscriptions not yet satisfactorily examined will probably add to the information given.]

The First Kings (A.D. 1336 to 1379)

Rapid acquisition of territory -- Reign of Harihara I. -- Check to Muhammadan aggression -- Reign of Bukka I. -- Kampa and Sangama? -- The Bahmani kingdom established, 1347 -- Death of Nagadeva of Warangal -- Vijayanagar's first great war -- Massacres by Muhammad Bahmani -- Battle at Adoni, 1366 -- Flight of Bukka -- Mujahid's war, 1375 -- He visits the Malabar coast -- Siege of Vijayanagar -- Extension of territory -- Death of Mujahid, 1378.

The city of Vijayanagar, thus founded about the year 1335, speedily grew in importance and became the refuge of the outcasts, refugees, and fighting men of the Hindus, beaten and driven out of their old strongholds by the advancing Muhammadans.

The first rulers of Vijayanagar, however, did not dare to call themselves kings, nor did even the Brahmans do so who composed the text of their early inscriptions. It is for this reason that I have spoken of Harihara I. and Bukka I. as "Chiefs." The inscription referred to of Harihara in 1340 calls him "Hariyappa VODEYA," the former name being less honourable than "Harihara," and the latter definitely entitling him to rank only as a chieftain. Moreover, the Sanskrit title given him is MAHAMANDALESVARA, which may be translated "great lord" -- not king. And the same is the case with his successor, Bukka, in two inscriptions,[32] one of which is dated in 1353. Already in 1340 Harihara is said to have been possessed of very large territories, and he was the acknowledged overlord of villages as far north as the Kaladgi district, north of the Malprabha, a country that had been overrun by Muhammad Taghlaq. That this was not a mere empty boast is shown by the fact that a fort was built in that year at Badami by permission of Harihara.

And thus we see the first chief of Vijayanagar quietly, and perhaps peacefully, acquiring great influence and extensive possessions. These so rapidly increased that Bukka's successor, Harihara II., styles himself RAJADHIRAJA, "king of kings," or emperor.

But to revert to the first king Harihara, or, as Nuniz calls him, "Dehorao," for DEVA RAYA. He reigned, according to our chronicle, seven years, "and did nothing therein but pacify the kingdom, which he left in complete tranquillity." His death, if this be so, would have taken place about the year 1343. Nuniz relates that he founded a temple in honour of the Brahman hermit, his protector. This was the great temple at Hampe close to the river, which is still in full preservation and is the only one among the massive shrines erected at the capital in which worship is still carried on; the others were remorselessly wrecked and destroyed by the Muhammadans in 1565. As already stated, the traveller Ibn Batuta refers to this king under the name of "Haraib" or "Harib" in or about the year 1342. If the traditions collated by Nuniz, according to which Harihara I. lived at peace during the seven years of his reign, be true, his death must have occurred before 1344, because in that year, as we learn from other sources, Krishna, son of Pratapa Rudra of Warangal, took refuge at Vijayanagar, and, in concert with its king and with the surviving Ballala princes of Dvarasamudra, drove back the Muhammadans, rescued for a time part of the Southern Dakhan country, and prepared the way for the overthrow of the sovereignty of Delhi south of the Vindhyas. I take it, therefore, that Harihara died in or about the year A.D. 1343.