MANUAL OF THE NILAQIRI DISTRICT. 2(37 



approach of the Mahommadans, may have contributed their CHAP. XI. 

 wealth to the aggrandisement of the sons of Sangama." ^ The „ 

 date of the founding of the city usually given is 1 336, but this History. 

 is probably too early. The dynasty of Harihara possessed the 

 throne until the year 1490, when it was superseded by that of 

 Narasinga, whose descendants held the raj until its final over- 

 throw. The empire, which perhaps reached its zenith in the 

 reign of Krishna Raya (1508-1542), existed until the final decade 

 of the sixteenth century ; but its power was broken thirty years 

 before by the defeat and death of the usurper Kam Rai at 

 the battle of Talikota in 1665. This victory marks the true 

 beginning of the ascendancy of the Moslems in the peninsula. 

 Hitherto their irruptions south of the Kistna were little better 

 than predatory excursions. For more than two hundred years 

 the able monarchs of Vijayanagar had withstood the Moslem 

 immigrants ever pressing towards the south, and by their astute 

 policy had combined the eternally conflicting princedoms of the 

 peninsula into a confederation against the followers of the 

 Prophet. In effecting this object they resorted to a system of 

 military colonization,^ — which they may have learned from the 

 Mahommadans, — the establishment throughout the peninsula of 

 bands of Telugu soldiers known as Nayaks, conferring on them 

 lands, in return for which they preserved order in the subject or 

 quasi-subject rajaships. Such settlements seem to be peculiar to 

 this empire, for we find nothing similar to them in the policy of 

 the earlier native conquerors of the south. 



As the empire of Vijayanagar waned, and whilst the Mahom- Mysore, 

 madan power was rising in importance, some of the native 

 feudatories gradually advanced towards independence. The most 

 important of these were the Nayaks of Madura and the Wodeas ^ 

 of Mysore. In South Mysore, as elsewhere, several vassal chiefs 

 had received small tracts of territory, and in return rendered 

 military service. The principal were the Wodeas of Mysore, 

 Kalala, Yelandur and Ummatur. The first and the last chiefly 

 concern the Nilagiris. These chiefs were under the immediate 

 authority of the viceroy of the Vijayanagar kings, whose seat 

 was at Seringapatam. 



The house of Mysore traces its origin to two Yadava cadets, 

 Vijaya and Krishna, who came from Guzerat to push their 

 fortunes in the south. On arriving at Hadindd, near Nanjangudi, 

 on the Mysore-Ootacamand road, they found the daughter 

 of the Wodea of the place about to be forced into a marriage 



' Descriptive Catalogue, Vol. I, p. cxii. 



2 WiLKs' Mysore, Vol. I, Chapter I. 



3 See Chapiej' IX, Part V. 



