Legendary period.

23. Berar is first mentioned, under the name of Vidarbha, in the Mahabharata, one of the two great epics of the Hindus. This poem is in no sense history and, as Mr. Vincent Smith says, [Early History of India, page 8.] while of value as a traditional picture of social life in the heroic age does not seem to contain matter illustrating the political relations of states during the historical period. Nevertheless the period covered by the events which form the basis of the poem's story has been conjecturally placed between 1500 and 1000 B.C.

The Mahabharata.

24. In the Mahabharata Vidarbha is described as a large kingdom lying to the south of Nishadh or southern Malwa, and governed, during the time when the Pandavas were preparing to expel the Kauravas from Hastinapur, by a proud and boastful raja named Rukmin. The kingdom took its name from its capital, which is identified, both by legend and etymology, with Bidar in the Nizam's dominions, the capital of the later Bahmani kings of the Deccan. If credit may be given to this legend the ancient kingdom of Vidarbha must have been far more extensive than the modern Province of Berar.

Rukmin marched with a large army to the aid of the Pandavas and was hospitably received and royally entertained by Yudhishthira, the eldest of the five princes. At the banquet Rukmin indulged to excess in liquor, and after boasting of his prowess demanded a share of the kingdom of Hastinapur as the price of his assistance. His arrogance excited the wrath of Arjun, who told him that although he and his brothers were grateful for the proffered aid they could not tolerate his boasting or accept his conditions, and that he might go or stay, as he pleased. Rukmin then transferred his offer of assistance to the Kauravas and was at first well received by Duryodhan, but contrived to irritate his new friends by his overbearing manners and at length arose in great wrath and returned to his own country.

Rukmin had a beautiful sister named Rukmini, who was sought in marriage by the demi-god Krishna but was already betrothed to Sisupal, the raja of Chedi. Rukmin refused to allow her to break her troth but Krishna carried her off by force and married her, the wedding ceremonies being performed, according to local legend, at the temple of Amba Bhawani at Amraoti. Rukmin, thus thwarted, retired to Bhatkuli, nine miles west of Amraoti, where he passed the rest of his life as a recluse.

Vidarbha was also the scene of the love-story of Nal and Damayanti. Nal, the raja of Nishadh, and Damayanti, the beautiful daughter of Bhim, raja of Vidarbha, fell in love, each with the other's description. Bhim proclaimed a swayamvar at which Damayanti chose Nal from a large number of rajas to be her husband. The marriage was celebrated and Nal carried Damayanti away to Nishadh. The troubles of their married life and their long separation in consequence of Nal's losses at play are related both in the Mahabharata and in a long Persian poem by Akbar's poet laureate FaizI, the brother of Abu-1-Fazl, but are not connected with the story of Berar.

Abdur Rahman the Ghazi.

25. A purely legendary episode is connected with Ellichpur, This is the fable of the jihad or Holy War of Shah Abdur Rahman the Ghazi, sister's son to Mahmud of Ghazni, which is said to have taken place in the reign of the eponymous raja II of Ellichpur. The legend of raja II is that he was a Jain by religion and came from the village now known as Khanzaman nagar near Wadgaon. He founded Ellichpur, according to local pandits, in the year Samvat 1115, corresponding with A.D. 1058. A wandering Muhammadan fakir is said to have visited his court, and so to have annoyed the raja by his zeal for Islam as to cause the latter to have his hand cut off. The fakir left India and laid his case before Abdur Rahman, whose nuptials were then being celebrated at Ghazni. The youthful bridegroom in his religious zeal stopped the wedding festivities at once and, assembling an army of several thousand warriors, set out for Berar accompanied by his mother the Bibi Malika-i-Jahan. The Muhammadan legend says that Northern India was then ruled by a raja named Vaked who had quarrelled with II and gladly assisted the invader. II heard of the approach of Abdur Rahman and sent an army to meet him. The two armies met near Kherla in the Betul District and the Musalmans were at first hard pressed until Abdur Rahman was inspired by a voice from heaven to cut off his own head. This he did, and then led his whole army against the Hindus, who were routed and pursued as far as Ellichpur. Here the invaders were met by II himself who, after an obstinately contested battle, was defeated and took refuge in the city. He was brought bound to Abdur Rahman who urged him to accept Islam, which the raja refused to do. When asked what he would have done had he been victorious he replied that he would have flayed Abdur Rahman, stuffed his skin with straw, and burnt it. Abdur Rahman immediately ordered the raja to be so treated and ' sent him to be one of the chiefs of hell.' A chronogram pretends to give the date of this event as A.H. 392 (A.D. 1001-02) which does not correspond with the date of the foundation of Ellichpur according to the Hindu legend.

Pachpinya legends.

36. This fable, absurd though it is, is one of a very well-known class. The parentage of the hero, the incident of the headless horseman, and the fact that the followers of Abdur Rahman who captured Raja II are locally known as the Punch Fir or Pachpir, connect the story with the well-known Pachpiriya legends of the Bahraich District in the United Provinces. When and by whom this particular fable was invented it is impossible to say, but it is probably later than the period of Bahmani rule, to which may be assigned the shrine in Ellichpur known as that of Abdur Rahman. The shrine is probably a tomb erected to the memory of Shujat Khan, Dilawar Khan, Rustam Khan and Bahadur Khan, generals of Firoz Shah Bahmani who were slain in a battle at Kherla in 140c. This identification will account for the association of this shrine with one at Kherla where, according to the legend, the head of the Ghazi is buried. The Hindu generals mentioned in the legend are eponymous heroes whose names are connected with the names of places in the Amraoti District. Thus we have Bairat, connected with Bairat, and possibly also with Bairagarh in the Melghat and Ridh, associated with Ritpur or Ridhpur, now the headquarters of the Mahanubhava sect. [For a full version of the legend of Shah Abdur Rahman see Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXL, Part III.]

Hindu period.

27. The early history of the District, apart from such legends as these, is vague and fragmentary. Berar formed part of the empire of Asoka Maurya who reigned from 272 to 231 B.C., but it is not certain whether it was governed directly by his officers or whether it formed a protected state under chiefs of the Pulinda tribe. Pushyamitra Sunga, commander of the forces of Brihadratha, the last Maurya emperor, having, in 184 A.D., slain his master, founded the Sunga dynasty and towards the end of his reign his heir-apparent, Agnimitra, made war on and defeated the Raja of Vidarbha, but neither the shortlived Sunga dynasty nor the northern dynasties which succeeded it ever attempted to reconquer Berar, which was shortly afterwards included in the empire established by the Andhra dynasty of Telingana which originally had its capital at Shri Kakulam on the lower course of the Krishna. It is probable that the Province was included among the conquests of the Sakas, Pallavas, and Yavanas in A.D. 100 and was freed from their domination in A.D. 126 by the twenty-third Andhra king, Vilivayakara II. This king was succeeded in 138 by his son Pulumayi II, while the Saka satrap Rudradaman assumed the government of the western provinces, among which Berar should probably be included. Rudradaman's daughter Dakshamitra was married to Pulumayi, but the satrap was deterred by no scruples from attacking his son-in-law and reconquering the territory which Vilivayakara II had conquered from the Sakas, Pallavas, and Yavanas, for he moved his capital from Kolhapur to Paithan [The Plithana of Ptolemy.] on the upper Godavari, a step which indicates that he had business in the north-western corner of his kingdom which demanded his attention.

The Rashtrakutas and Vakatakas.

28. The Andhra dynasty came to an end about 236 and from that time to 550 the history of the Deccan is a blank, though, as Mr. Vincent Smith remarks, there is reason to believe that the western territory or Maharashtra, in which Berar should probably be included, ' was governed by princes of the Rashtrakuta or Ratta clan'; which, long afterwards, in the middle of the eighth century, became for a time the leading power in the Deccan. We have, however, some trace of a dynasty, that of the Vakatakas, which appears from its grants to have ruled an extensive tract of country, including the whole of Berar. Very little is known of this dynasty, the capital of which was perhaps at Bhandak near Chanda in the Central Provinces. A short inscription in cave XVI at Ajanta gives the names of seven members of the family, and from other sources we learn that ten rajas the names of all of whom, save two, have been handed down, ascended the throne. It is by means of Pravarasena II, the fifth raja, that we are able to connect the dynasty with the Amraoti District, for a copper-plate grant of the eighteenth regnal year of this prince relating to ' Charmanka in the Bhojakata kingdom,' i.e., Chammak in the District, has been discovered. The Bhojakata kingdom was perhaps a feudatory state.

The Chalukyas.

29. The Chalukyas dynasty was founded about 550 by Pulikesin I, who had his capital at Vatapi, the modern Badami in the Bijapur District, and his immediate successors extended the limits of their kingdom so as to include not only Berar but also many states to the north. In the reign of Pulikesin II, the sixth of the line, the capital was at Nasik. In the middle of the eighth century Dantidurga, a member of the ancient Rashtrakuta family, overthrew Kirttivarman II, Chalukya, extinguished the main branch of the western Chalukyas, and seized the sovereignty of the Deccan, which was held by his successors for two centuries and a quarter. In 973 Kakka II, the last of the Rashtrakuta kings, was overthrown by Taila II, a descendant of the Chalukyan stock who had his capital at Kaliyani, now a town in the Bidar District of the Hyderabad State. Taila II was not able at once to establish his authority in the northern provinces of the kingdom which had been ruled by the Rashtrakutas, and during his earlier wars with Vakpati II, Munja, the Paramara raja of Malwa, the Godavari formed the boundary between the kingdoms of Malwa and the Deccan, and Berar belonged to the former kingdom; but about 995 Taila defeated and captured the raja of Malwa and Berar was brought once more under the sway of the Chalukyas. In the latter half of the twelfth century the power of the Chalukyas was broken by rebellions and towards the end of the century the greater part of their dominions was seized by the Yadavas of Deogiri on the north and the Hoysalas of Dvarasamudra on the south. Berar seems from Barani's and Firishta's accounts of Ala-ud-din Khilji's raid into the Deccan, to have been the northern province of the Deogiri kingdom, and it appears that Ellichpur, which Barani calls 'one of the famous cities of the Deccan,' was even then the provincial capital.

The Yadavas of Deogiri.

30. The founder of the Yadava dynasty was Bhillama, a feudatory noble of the Chalukya kingdom who was killed in battle by the Hoysala Tribhuvanamalla Vira Ballala II in 1191. Singhana, the third prince of the line, who reigned from 1210 to 1247, established a kingdom which, during his reign and that of his grandson Krishna, rivalled in extent the realms of the Chalukyas and Rashtrakntas. The brother and successor of Krishna, Mahadeva Ugrasarvabhauma, who reigned from 1260 to 1271, had a Brahman councillor, Hemadri, the Hemad Pant. to whom are attributed the old Hindu temples of Berar built in the Chalukyan, locally known as the Hemadpanthi, style. Hemadri had a protege, Bopadeva, the son of Keshava, one of the few literary characters whom Berar has produced. He was the author of the Harililia, the Satashlcki, and the Muktaphala, a work on Vaishnava doctrines. The grammatical treatise Mugdhabodha is also attributed to him. Mahadeva was succeeded by his nephew Ramchandra, styled Ramdeo by Muhammadan historians, the last independent raja of Deogiri.

Muhammadan period. Invasion of the Deccan.

31. In 1294 Ala-ud-din, governor of the province of which Kara on the Ganges, 42 miles north-west of Allahabad, was the capital, and nephew and son-in-law of Jalal ud-din Firoz Shah Khilji, the reigning emperor of Delhi, having assembled an army ostensibly for the purpose of punishing a refractory Hindu chief on the borders of his province, suddenly invaded the Deccan without the knowledge or consent of his uncle. His objective was Deogiri, of the wealth of which kingdom he had heard in the course of his forays in Central India. He marched from Kara to Chanderi, and thence across the Satpuras to Ellichpur, where he halted for two days, explaining his presence by saying that he was one Malik Ala-ud-din who had been one of the nobles of the emperor of Delhi, but was now leaving his master with the intention of taking service with the raja of Rajamahendri in Telingana. His story served its purpose and he was not molested at Ellichpur, which he left suddenly at midnight, advancing by forced marches towards Deogiri. It is unnecessary to recount the details of his successful raid. Ala-ud-din not only carried off from Deogiri an enormous quantity of plunder, but was strong enough to insist on the assignment of the revenues of Ellichpur and the districts attached thereto, which probably included the whole of the Amraoti District and the rest of northern Berar. Annexation was not attempted, nor were Muhammadans. introduced into the administration. Treasure was all that Ala-ud-din required for his immediate needs, and this the adventurer obtained in plenty.

Ala-ud-din ascends the throne.

32. Ala-ud-din on his return murdered his uncle and ascended the throne of Delhi early in 1206. During his reign Berar was traversed by Muhammadan armies from Delhi marching on expeditions to the Deccan, but we find no special mention of the Province. In 1302 or 1306, according to one account, an expedition under the African Kafur Hazardinari was sent against Deogiri in consequence of Ramchandra having failed to remit tribute and having allied himself with Rai Karan of Gujarat, who had refused to send his daughter Deval Devi to Delhi. Ramchandra and his family were captured and sent to Delhi, but the emperor pardoned him and restored him to his throne, and it does not appear that the arrangement under which Ellichpur and northern Berar remained under Hindu administrators charged with the remission of the revenue to Delhi was disturbed.

Ramchandra died in 1309 and was succeeded by his eldest son Shankar, who rebelled against Delhi and refused to remit the tribute. In 1312 Kafur, now entitled Malik Naib, led an expedition to Deogiri, defeated and slew Shankar, and annexed his kingdom, including Berar, to the empire. The Amraoti District thus came for the first time directly under Muhammadan administration.

Rebellion in Deogiri.

33. Ala-ud-din Khilji died at the end of 1316, and in the confusion which followed his death and the subsequent assassination of Malik Naib, Harpal, the son-in-law of Ramchandra, seized Deogiri and ruled it for a short time as an independent king, bringing Berar once again under Hindu rule, but by 1318 affairs at Delhi had been settled and Kutb-ud-din Mubarak Shah, who was then on the throne, marched southwards, attacked Harpal, captured him and caused him to be flayed, and placed his head above one of the gates of Deogiri. Amraoti thus passed again, with the rest of Berar, into the hands of the Musalmans, and the province remained nominally under Muhammadan rule and administration until it was assigned under the treaty of 1853 'to the East India Company.

Malik Yaklaki was appointed governor of the reconquered provinces and shortly afterwards rebelled. We are not told what part the officers in Berar took in the rebellion, which was suppressed.

Tughlak Shah.

34. Kutb-ud din Mubarak Shah was assassinated in 1321 and usurper who ascended his throne was defeated and slain before the end of that year by Ghazi Beg Tughlak, the Turki governor of the Punjab, who was raised to the imperial throne under the title of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlak Shah. The expeditions to the Deccan in his reign are not directly connected with the history of Berar, but the resources of the province were doubtless taxed in the effort to furnish supplies for the armies from Delhi. Tughlak died in 1325 and was succeeded by his son, Muhammad bin Tughlak, who in 1339 transferred the capital of the empire from Delhi to Deogiri, which he renamed Daulatabad. It is likely that the importance of Berar, which now adjoined the District in which the capital of the empire was situated, was temporarily enhanced by this change, but Daulatabad did not long remain the capital.

Organization of the provinces of the Deccan.

35. Maharashtra was now divided into four shikks or provinces, and though the limits of these are not mentioned, it is probable that they corresponded roughly with the four tarafs or provinces into which the Bahmani kingdom was afterwards divided, and that Berar, with its capital at Ellichpur, formed one of them. The land revenue of the whole tract was assessed at seven crores of white tankas ' of 175 grains each, or about £ 3,500,000. This assessement seems to have been excessive, for we read that the action of the shikkdars or provincial governors in collecting it caused widespread discontent and a partial depopulation of the country. The shikkdars were Malik Sardawatdar, Malik Mukhlis-ul-Mulk Yusuf Bughra, and Aziz Himar or Khammar, but the names of their provinces are not given. All were subordinate to Kutlugh Khan, Governor of Daulatabad, whose deputy was Imad-ul-Mulk, but Kutlugh Khan was recalled very soon after his settlement had been made, and it was then that the oppression of the shikkdars became unbearable. Immediately subordinate to these shikkdars was a class of officials styled centurions, military officers who also performed such civil duties as the collection of the revenue, the prevention and detection of crime, and the maintenance of order.

Rebellion of the amirs of the Deccan.

36. In 1347 Muhammad bin Tughlak marched to Gujarat to quell a rebellion which had broken out among the centurions of that Province and, having quieted Gujarat, summoned the centurions of the Deccan, intending to replace those of Gujarat with them but the officers of the Deccan whose loyalty was not above suspicion feared that they were being called to punishment, and when they had travelled one day's march towards Bahroch, where they had been ordered to assemble, they slew the officers who had been sent to summon them and returned to Daulatabad. Here they rose in rebellion and elected Ismail Fateh the Afghan, king of the Deccan, with the title of Nasir-ud-din [So styled by Firishta, Badaoni and the author of the Burhan-i-Maasir call him Nasir-ud-din.] Shah. This news at once brought Muhammad bin Tughlak from Bahroch to Daulatabad. He defeated the rebels in the field, but the new king took refuge in the fort and Muhammad was unable to capture the place and news soon arrived that rebellion had broken out afresh in Gujarat, which compelled him to return thither, leaving an army to besiege Daulatabad. This army was defeated and the amirs of the Deccan, on Nasir-ud-din abdicating, elected as their king, Hasan, styled Zafar Khan, who ascended the throne as Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah [This was his correct title, as a contemporary inscription and legend on coins show. The fantastic epithets bestowed on him by various historians are connected with foolish stories.] in 1347.

The Bahmanis.

37. Bahman Shah, the founder of the Bahmani dynasty of the Deccan, which reigned in fact until 1482 and in name until 1526, divided his kingdom into four tarafs or provinces, each under the governorship of a tarafdar or provincial governor. The provinces were Berar, Daulatabad, Bidar, and Gulbarga. We have, unfortunately, very little information as to the details of provincial administration, but it is known that the powers of the tarafdars were very extensive. The tarafdars of Berar, whose headquarters were at Ellichpur, governed a tract of country far larger than the modern province. Its southern boundary was the Godavari and its western boundary extended beyond Baitalwadi. In this large province the governor was almost independent. He commanded the provincial army, collected the revenues, and made all appointments, both civil and military, including appointments to the command of forts, which were among the most important of all. His duties to the central authority seem to have been confined to the regular remission of a proportion of the revenue and to attending on his sovereign with the army of the province, whenever he might be called upon to do so. We know little or nothing of the administrative divisions of Berar in these early days, but it was probably divided into two principal divisions, one on the north, with its capital at Ellichpur and one on the south with its capital at Mahur. The existing parganas date, almost Certainly, from the period of Hindu rule, and the sardars described in the Ain-i-Akbari were perhaps a legacy from the days of the Bahmanids.

Muhammad Shah Bahmani, who succeeded his father in 1358, elaborated the organization of the four tarafs and gave to each tarafdar a distinctive title, the governor of Berar being Styled Majlis-i-Ali.

Safdar Khan, governor of Berar.

38. The first governor of Berar under the Bahmanids was a Persian, Safdar Khan Sistani. In 1362 he commanded the army of the province in Muhammad Shah's expedition into Telingana and was absent from Berar on this occasion for two years. In 1366, while Muhammad Shah was waging war against Vijayanagar, Bahram Khan Mazandarani, deputy governor of Daulatabad, broke into rebellion at the instigation of Kondba Deo, a Maratha, and several of the nobles of Berar, who were related to Bahram Khan, were involved in the rebellion with him. The rebellion was suppressed and its leaders made good their escape into Gujarat. At this time highway robbery seems to have been rife in the Deccan, for Muhammad Shah found it necessary to issue special orders to the tarafdars for the suppression of the crime. The remedy was drastic. The malefactors were beheaded and their' heads were sent to the capital. Twenty thousand heads were thus collected at Gulbarga, and we may presume that Safdar Khan sent his share.

The provinces were not neglected in the reign of Muhammad I, who toured in one of them every year unless occupied in war, and hunted for three or four months. This information may appear trifling, but it enables us to understand to some extent how Berar was governed in former days and how it was that a kingdom organized as was that of the Bahmanids did not fall to pieces sooner than it did.

Mujahid Shah.

39. Muhammad I died in 1375 and was succeeded by his son, Mujahid Shah, who made war against Bukka I of Vijayanagar. Safdar Khan was summoned to the capital with the army of Berar and was sent to besiege Adoni. The Hindus were vanquished before this fortress fell and the siege was relinquished. Mujahid Shah returned slowly through the Raichur Doab, hunting as he went, and Safdar Khan and the governor of Bidar, knowing his rash and impetuous disposition, exerted themselves to restrain him from running needless risks in his sport. The king wearied of their good advice and, much against their will, ordered them to return to their provinces. The two governors pursued, their way slowly and unwillingly, and shortly after their departure Mujahid was assassinated, on April 17th, 1387, at the instigation of his uncle, Daud, whom he had offended during the campaign against the Hindus. Daud hastened to Gulbarga in order to ascend the throne, but Safdar Khan and the governor of Bidar refused to attend him there and turned aside to Bijapur, where the royal elephants were. They seized these, divided them between them, and returned to their provinces with them. Daud Shah was assassinated on May 21st, 1378, and was succeeded by his nephew, Muhammad [Most English writers, in deference to Firishta, who is obstinately mistaken as to this king's name, style him Mahmud, in spite of the evidence of coins, inscriptions, and other historians. Mahmud was his father's name.- Vide Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXXIII, Part I.] Shah II.

On the accession of Muhammad II, Safdar Khan and the governor of Bidar made their submission and hastened to the capital to offer him their congratulations. Early in this reign there was a severe famine in Berar and the Deccan. A school for famine orphans was established at Ellichpur, where the children were brought up in the Muhammadan faith, and special allowances were given in all towns to religious teachers and to the blind.

Salabat Khan, governor of Berar. War with Kherla.

40. Muhammad II died on April 22nd, 1397, and was succeeded by his elder son, Ghiyas-ud-din, who was 17 years of age. In his reign Safdar Khan Sistani, the governor of Berar, died in Ellichpur. His son, Salabat Khan, who had been a playfellow of the young king, was appointed governor of Berar in his father's place, with the title of Majlis-i-Ali. On June 16th, 1397, Ghiyas-ud-din was blinded and deposed, and his brother Shams-ud-din was placed on the throne. He, however, was deposed and imprisoned at the end of the year and, was succeeded by his cousin, Taj-ud-din Firoz Shah. The army of Berar, under Salabat Khan, took part in Firoz Shah's campaign against Harihara II of Vijayanagar in 1398-99. The campaign was eminently successful and Firoz Shah on his return left Pulad Khan, another son of Safdar Khan Sistani, in charge of the Raichur Doab. But on this occasion the absence of the governor from Berar produced disastrous results, for Narsingh Deo, the Gond Raja of Kherla, had overrun the province from north to south and occupied it. Firoz Shah hastened northwards and, after recapturing Mahur, pressed on towards Kherla by way of Ellichpur. Here he halted and sent on an army under the command of his brother Ahmad Khan, the Khan-i-Khanan, to punish the Gonds. Ahmad advanced to within a short distance of Kherla and was met by the Gond troops under Narsingh Deo. The Gonds fought with great determination and broke the centre of the Musalmans, slaying Shujat Khan, Rustam Khan, and Dilawar Khan. The right under the command of Ahmad Khan, and the left under the command of Mir Fazl-ullah Anju Shirazi still stood fast. Fazl-ullah was told that Ahmad Khan had fallen, but wisely forbade his informant to circulate the rumour, which turned out to be false. He then caused it to be proclaimed that Firoz Shah had come in person to the relief of his troops and caused the 'great drums to be beaten. The scattered forces of the Muslims rallied to the sound and Mir Fazl-ullah and Ahmad Khan managed to join forces and to attack the enemy. Gopal Rai, the son of Narsingh Deo, was taken prisoner, and the Gonds were pursued with great slaughter to the gates of Kherla, whither Narsingh Deo arrived only just in time to save his life. Ahmad Khan and Fazl-ullah then besieged the fortress and after the lapse of two months the Gonds offered to surrender on conditions. The Muhammadan generals replied that they had no power to offer terms, and that if Narsingh Deo desired to obtain them it was necessary that he and his chief nobles should make their submission to Firoz Shah in Ellichpur, to which place they were offered a safe conduct. This advice was followed, and the raja swore at the footstool of Firoz in Ellichpur that he and his successors would be faithful liegemen of the Bahmanids as their predecessor had been in the days of Bahman Shah. Narsingh Deo was dismissed with honour after paying tribute and presenting to the Sultan a daughter who was received into the zanana.

The names of the Muhammadan nobles killed at the battle of Kherla are worthy of attention for, as we have seen, they probably provided the apocryphal Abdur Rahman with a local habitation and a name. They were four in number and it appears probable that the requisite tale of five was completed by Salabat Khan, the governor of Berar, for no more is heard of this tarafdar, and Firoz Shah, immediately before he left Ellichpur for Gulbarga, appointed he gallant Mir Fazl-ullah Anju governor of Berar.

Wars with Vijayanagar and Gondwana.

41. In 1406 Firoz Shah was at war with Vijayanagar and the army of Berar under Fazl-ullah was employed in the siege of Bankapur. The expedition was successful, Bankapur, with the country surrounding it, was annexed to the Bahmani dominions, and Fazl-ullah and his army returned to Berar. In 1412 Firoz Shah indulged in an apparently purposeless campaign in Gondwana in which the army of Berar probably took the principal part.

In 1417 Firoz embarked on a disastrous war against Vira Vijaya of Vijayanagar. Mir Fazl-ullah Anju who, with the army of Berar, played the man in the decisive battle of the campaign, in which the Muslims were defeated, was treacherously slain by a Kanarese attendant who had been bribed by his co-religionists. The affairs of the kingdom fell into great confusion and nobody was immediately appointed to succeed the gallant tarafdar of Berar, but the government of the province was probably carried on by the deputy whom Fazl-ullah had left behind him when he set out on the fatal expedition.

The Khan-i-Jahan appointed governor of Berar.

42. In 1422 Ahmad Khan deposed his brother Firoz Shah and ascended the throne in Gulbarga as Ahmad Shah I. His first care was to bring the war with the Hindus to a successful conclusion, and in the attainment of this object he laid waste the territories of Vijayanagar. After one of his actions he was separated from his army while hunting and nearly fell into the hands of a band of resolute Hindu warriors, but was rescued by Abdul Kadir, a commander of 200 horse and captain of the guard, whose soldierly precautions averted the disaster which Ahmad's foolish behaviour courted. Abdul Kadir's reward was the vacant governorship of Berar with the title of Khan-i-Jahan in addition to the ex-officio title of Majlis-i-Ali. Abdul Kadir, who held the governorship of Berar for nearly forty years, was the son of Muhammad Isa, the son of Mahmud, the son of a Turk named Malik Hindui who received the title of lmad-ul-Mulk from Bahman Shah, and held under that king the appointment of inspector-general of the forces. The Khan-i-Jahan was thus a Deccani of Turki descent.

Ahmad Shah made peace with Vira Vijaya and then set out to capture Warangal, which fell into the hands of Abdul Latif Khan-i-Azam, the governor of Bidar. The king then returned to his capital.

Ahmad Shah visits Ellichpur.

43. In the confusion which followed on the rout of the Muslims at Pangul affairs in the Provinces of the kingdom had fallen into great disorder and the Hindus of the greater part of Berar seem to have risen in rebellion. In 1425 Ahmad Shah was compelled to march northwards to restore order. After capturing Mahur and Kalam, which had fallen into the hands of the Gonds or Hindus, he marched to Ellichpur, where he halted for a year. His object in making this long halt in the capital of his northern province is said to have been the preparation for the extension of his kingdom towards the north. His brother Firoz Shah had sent a complimentary letter with expressions of submission by Mir Fazl-ullah Anju to Amir Timur when that scourge invaded India in 1398 and the conqueror acknowledged the letter by bestowing on Firoz the sovereignty of Gujarat and Malwa in addition to that of the Deccan, and Firishta supposes that Ahmad now purposed, if possible, to turn this empty grant to some account. The theory is a most improbable one. Ahmad Shah, as we shall see, had conscientious scruples against attacking brother Muslims, and to the south of his kingdom lay an unconquered Hindu empire which was both lawful prey and a source of danger in the case of difficulties in the north, and he had very little chance of success against the combined forces of Gujarat and Malwa, which would certainly have been joined by Khandesh. The more reasonable view is that Ahmad was merely strengthening his northern frontier in order to prevent in roads during his southern wars, and to this end he built the fort of Gawil and repaired that of Narnala. These expressions, which are Firishta's, seem to imply that Narnala was the older fort or the two, but they need not be taken too literally, for Gawilgarh was probably fortified long before the time of Ahmad Shah. Its name points to its having been at one time like Gaoligarh in Khandesh and Asirgarh (Asa, Ahir Garh), the stronghold of a local Gaoli chieftain before the advent of the Musalmans. Whatever Ahmad's object may have been Hoshang Shah of Malwa disapproved of his preparations, and invited Narsingh Deo of Kherla, who had been reduced to vassalage by Firoz, to transfer his allegiance to Malwa. Narsingh Deo refused to listen to Hoshang who, after consulting Nasir Khan of Khandesh, without whose acquiescence he could not afford to act, twice attacked Kherla and was twice defeated. Ahmad Shah rendered no material assistance to his vassal and Hoshang's third attempt on Kherla was more successful. His officers wrested some districts from the Gonds and Hoshang prepared to follow up this advantage by marching on Kherla. in person. Narsingh Deo considered that it was high time to appeal to his suzerain and in 1428 sent messengers to Ahmad Shah, who had returned to his capital, to ask for help. Ahmad Shah ordered the Khan-i-Jahan to march to the assistance of Narsingh Deo with the army of Berar and marched northwards in leisurely fashion, as though bent only on sport, until he reached Ellichpur. Meanwhile Hoshang, attributing Ahmad's comparative inaction to fear, advanced on Kherla and after ravaging the country, sat down to besiege the fortress, boasting that Ahmad Shah Bahmani was afraid to meet him in the field. Ahmad Shah was much incensed when he heard of Hoshang's boast, and at once set forth from Ellichpur to encounter him. While he was yet forty miles distant from Hoshang's army the doctors of religion in his camp approached him, reminded him that no Bahmanid had ever yet declared war on a Muhammadan king and advised him that it ill became, him to attack Hoshang in support of an infidel. Following their advice Ahmad Shah sent an envoy to Hoshang apprising him that Narsingh Deo was a vassal of Gulbarga and requesting him not to molest him. After the despatch of the envoy Ahmad Shah began to retire and this retrograde movement combined with his spiritless policy confirmed Hoshang in the belief that Ahmad feared him, and emboldened him to pursue the Deccanis so closely that he halted each evening on the ground which they had occupied in the morning. This insolence transgressed the bounds of even the pious Ahmad's forbearance, and when Hoshang crossed the frontier the doctors of religion were sent away from Ahmad's camp and the Deccanis instead of pursuing their way halted to receive the invaders who advanced without any apprehension of resistance. Ahmad Shah drew up his forces on the bank of a river, unfortunately not named. The governor of Berar commanded the right wing, Abdullah Khan, a grandson of Ismail Fateh, the left, and Ala-ud-din Ahmad, the king's eldest son, the centre. Ahmad Shah himself, with 2,000 picked cavalry and twelve elephants, lay in ambush far to the left. Hoshang. with no more than 17,000 cavalry, suddenly came upon the Deccanis in a carefully chosen position. He had no choice but to attack them and did so, and while action was at its height Ahmad Shah suddenly fell upon Hoshang's rear. The army of Malwa was routed and Hoshang Shah fled so precipitately that he left the ladies of his harem in Ahmad's hands. Meanwhile Narsingh Deo had heard of his enemy's disaster and, emerging from Kherla, fell upon the beaten army and completed the heavy tale of slaughter, while Hoshang and the remnant of his forces made the best of their Way to Mandu. The loss suffered by Musalmans at the hands of an unbeliever again aroused Ahmad Shah's scruples and to console his adversary he returned his ladies to him under a trusty guard, accompanied by a present of many eunuchs. Ahmad then returned to Gulbarga. A less probable account of this campaign represents Ahmad Shah as the aggressor. According to this account he was preparing to attack Narsingh Deo when Hoshang Shah marched to the latter's aid. Whichever version be accepted Ahmad Shah was victorious. He left Berar in 1429 and in the same year transferred his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar.

War with with Gujarat and Malwa.

44. In 1430, the daughter of Nasir Khan, the ruler of Khandesh, was married to Ala-ud-din Ahmad, the eldest son of Ahmad Shah. The marriage is of local interest for it afterwards led to a war between Ala-ud-din Ahmad and his father-in-law. In the same year Khalaf Hasan Basri, entitled Malik-ut-Tujjar, who had been one of Ahmad Shah's earliest partisans, was made governor of Daulatabad. Here his zeal in his master's service brought on a war between Ahmad Shah of the Deccan and Ahmad Shah of Gujarat which lasted for a year and exhausted both sides. In 1433 Hoshang Shah of Malwa, taking advantage of the enfeebled condition of the Deccan. attacked and annexed Kherla, slaying Narsingh Deo. Ahmad Shah marched into Berar and was on the point of attacking Hoshang when Nasir Khan of Khandesh intervened and proposed terms of peace which were accepted by both sides. These terms Were that Hoshang Shah should return to Kherla and that Berar should remain a part of Ahmad Shah's dominions. The acceptance of these terms by Ahmad Shah indicates the extent to which he had been weakened by the war with Gujarat, for it would have been unnecessary to introduce into the treaty the article relating to Berar unless Hoshang Shah had been prepared, with some hope of success, to attempt its annexation, and Ahmad Shah actually gave up all that he was prepared to fight for.

War with Khandesh.

45. Ahmad Shah I died in 1435 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ala-ud-din Ahmad Shah II, who had married the daughter of Nasir Khan. This lady, in a fit of jealousy, complained to her father that her husband was neglecting her for a Hindu mistress, and Nasir Khan prepared to invade his son-in-law's dominions. Having obtained the assent of Ahmad Shah of Gujarat to his enterprise he began to prepare his way by detaching the nobles of Berar from their allegiance to the Bahmani king. Nasir Khan claimed descent from the second 'Khalifa, Umar-ul-Faruk, and succeeded in persuading many of the officers in Berar that the one who fell fighting in the cause of the descendants of the greatest of the prophet's successors would receive the reward promised to martyrs for the faith. It is not easy to understand how the officers of Berar were deceived for Nasir Khan allied himself with infidel Gonds and probably with the Korkus of the Melghat also, but many fell into the trap and formed a strong party in Berar against the Bahmani king. The campaign did not take place in the Amraoti District but in Buldana and Khandesh, whither Nasir Khan was driven, and ended in the complete discomfiture of the invaders, but before engaging Nasir Khan, Khalaf Hasan Basri found it necessary to strengthen the garrison of Ellichpur, in order to prevent the Korkus from descending on the plains.

War with Vijayanagar.

46. In 1443 the army of Berar was employed, with the armies of the other provinces of the kingdom, in driving Devaraya II of Vijayanagar out of the Raichur Doab, which he had occupied, but Berar does not seem to have been settled enough to spare its governor for this expedition, for the Khan-i-Jahan did not accompany the army.

Invasion of the Deccan by Mahmud of Malwa.

47. Ala-ud-din Ahmad II died in 1458 and was succeeded by his son Humayun " the Tyrant" who had hardly ascended the throne when Jalal Khan and Sikandar Khan, two nobles who had rebelled in the previous reign, again rose. The governor of Berar who had visited the capital for the purpose of offering his congratulations to the new king was employed against the rebels, but was defeated, and the rising was ultimately suppressed by Humayun. We hear no more of Berar during this brief and troubled reign. Humayun Shah died in 1461 and was succeeded by his son Nizam Shah, aged eight. In 1462 Mahmud Shah of Malwa, taking advantage of the new king's youth, invaded the Deccan by way of western Berar. The army of Bidar was employed in keeping off the rajas of Telingana and Orissa, who had invaded the Bahmani dominions on the east, and the armies of Berar, Daulatabad and Gulbarga marched to meet Mahmud Shah. A battle was fought at Kandahar about seventy miles north of Bidar, and the Bahmani forces were defeated, Nizam Shah was carried off by his mother to Firozabad near Gulbarga while Mahmud Shah of Malwa sacked Bidar. He had begun to lay siege to the citadel when he heard that Mahmud Shah of Gujarat, to whom Nizam Shah's mother had appealed for help, had reached the north-western frontier of the Bahmani kingdom with 80,000 horse. Mahmud Gawan, one of the chief nobles of the Bahmani kingdom, joined the Gujaratis with five or six thousand cavalry, and continued to raise and borrow troops until he was able to take the field with an army of 40,000 Deccani and Gujarati horse. He sent 10,000 Deccani horse into Berar to cut off the invader's retreat and marched towards Bidar with the remainder of his force. Encamping between Bir and Kandahar he cut off the besiegers' supplies but would not risk a battle, though Mahmud Shah of Malwa could not put more than 30,000 horse into the field. At length the army of Malwa was starved out and Mahmud Shah of Malwa, after blinding his elephants and burning his heavy baggage, retreated northwards through eastern Berar. He was pursued and harassed throughout his retreat by Mahmud Gawan and the ten thousand horse which had been awaiting him in Berar. In order to avoid Mahmud Gawan on the one hand and escape Mahmud Shah of Gujarat on the other, he resolved to retreat through the hills of the Melghat and engaged one of the Korku rajas of that tract as a guide. After leading him by Ellichpur and Akot the raja took him into the hills and there intentionally led him astray. In the Melghat the army of Malwa perished by the thousand from heat and thirst and by the attacks of the Korkus, who were instigated by their raja. When the remnant of the army at length emerged from the wild hill country, Mahmud Shah of Malwa had the Korku raja put to death.

In the following year Mahmud of Malwa again invaded the Bahmani dominions and advanced as far as Daulatabad, but retreated on hearing that Mahmud of Gujarat was again marching to the support of the Deccanis.

Nizam Shah died in 1463 and was succeeded by his brother Muhammad III, surnamed Lashkari or "the soldier."

War with Kherla.

48. In 1467 Nizam-ul-Mulk the Turk, who had commanded the left wing in the battle of Kandahar against Mahmud Shah of Malwa, was appointed governor of Berar and was ordered to capture Kherla, where a Gond prince still owed allegiance to Malwa.

The army of Berar marched against Kherla and besieged and the army of Malwa, in an attempt to raise the siege, was signally defeated. Kherla fell, but two Rajputs of the place approached Nizam-ul-Mulk under the pretence of making their submission to him and assassinated him. They then attacked his attendants and were put to death. The two officers next in authority to Nizam-ul-Mulk were Yusuf Adil Khan [There is some conflict of authorities here. Some historians give the name of Yusuf Adil Khan the Deccani, a much less distinguished person, but a bitter enemy of Yusuf Adil Khan Sawai, as he was called. On the Whole the account given in the test is the more probable.], afterwards the founder of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur, and Darya Khan the Turk. These nobles argued that the desperate enterprise of the two Rajputs could not have been undertaken otherwise than at the instigation of some of the inhabitants of Kherla and a massacre of these unfortunates, with their wives and children, followed. Yusuf and Darya left a force to hold Kherla and returned to Bidar with the body of their late leader. Muhammad Shah approved of their action and bestowed Kherla upon them in jagir. Mahmud Shah of Malwa now sent an embassy to Muhammad Shah and reminded him of the treaty between Ahmad Shah Bahmani and Hoshang Shah of Malwa, in which it was stipulated that Kherla should belong to Malwa and Berar to the Bahmanids. He besought Muhammad Shah not to be a breaker of treaties, or the means of stirring up strife between Musalmans. Muhammad Shah returned to him a dignified reply by Shaikh Ahmad the Sadr, and Sharif-ul-Mulk. He thanked God that no one of the race of Bahman had ever been known to break a treaty and reminded Mahmud Shah that when the affairs of the Bahman: kingdom were in confusion after the accession of the boy-king Nizam Shah it was Mahmud himself who had broken faith by invading the Bahmani dominions. As for Kherla, he said, he had no need of such fortresses. In every corner of the empire of Karnata, which was still in the hands of the infidels, there were many fortresses like Kherla, and since these were ready to his hand he had no wish to deprive a brother Musalman of his fortresses. A new treaty was concluded whereby either sovereign bound himself by the most solemn oaths not to molest or invade the dominions of the other, and Kherla, which had been annexed to Berar, was handed back by Muhammad Shah to the king of Malwa.

Fateh -ullah Imad-ul - Mulk.

49. The governorship of Berar seems to have remained vacant for a few years after the death of Niz-amul-Mulk the Turk until, in 1471, Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk was made governor. This amir is worthy of special notice, for he founded the Imad Shahi dynasty, which reigned in Berar for a period or eighty years. He was a Brahman of Vijayanagar who was captured by the Musalmans in 1422 early in the reign of Ahmad Shah I, and was bestowed on the Khan-i-jahan, who was appointed governor of Berar immediately after the conclusion of the campaign, and was brought up as a Musalman, but never forgot his Brahman descent or his native land. More than sixty years after his capture when, as governor of Berar, he strengthened the fortifications of Gawilgarh, he adorned the northern gate, after-wards known as the Delhi gate, with representations of the emblem of Vijayanagar, the ganda-bherunda, a fabulous two-headed bird which was said to prey upon elephants, and these representations still remain, almost as clearly cut as when Fateh-ullah set them up as his boast that though a Musalman and the faithful servant of a Musalman he was by blood a twice born Brahmin and a native of the great Hindu empire of Vijayanagar. Fateh-ullah had spent all his service, if we except temporary periods of absence in the field, in Berar and was a very fair instance of the strength and the weakness of the provincial system of the Bahmani kingdom. He seems to have been sincerely attached to the province, despite his pride of race and descent, and to have been at the same time a faithful servant of the Bahmanids. In his later years, when troubles gathered thick and fast around the head of the descendant of Bahman Shah and when the provincial governors were driven rather than tempted to rebellion, he was regarded as the Nestor of the Deccan, and his entire freedom from party prejudice was displayed in his grief and anger at the unjust execution of Mahmud Gawan, a foreigner, and in his unwavering friendship for Yusuf Adil Khan Sawai another foreigner, who differed from him in religion, being a staunch Shah while Fateh-ullah was an equally staunch Sunni.

Berar suffered, with the rest of the Deccan, from the terrible two years of famine in 1473, and 1474, and most of those who escaped death from starvation fled to Malwa and Gujarat. In the third year rain fell, but prosperity was slow to return, for there were few left to till the soil and the wanderers returned by slow degrees.

Redistribution of provinces.

50. In the campaigns of Muhammad III in Orissa, Telingana, and the Peninsula, Fateh-ullah, with the army of Berar, bore a share. In 1480, before these campaigns had been brought to a close, the four provinces into which the Deccan had been divided by Bahman Shah were subdivided into eight. Berar was divided into the two new provinces of northern Berar, named Gawil, and southern Berar, named Mahur, the whole of the Amraoti District being included in the former, which remained under the governorship of Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk, while Khudawand Khan the African was made governor of Mahur. At the same time the powers of the provincial governors were much curtailed. Many parganas of the provinces were made khas and were administered by officers appointed direct by the crown, while the governors were allowed to appoint a commandant only to the chief fort in each province, all other commandants of forts being appointed direct by the king. These belated reforms caused much dissatisfaction among some of the tarafdars, but the faithful Fateh-ullah, though stripped of half his province, seems to have taken no exception to them. The malcontents, how-ever, entered into a conspiracy against Mahmud Gawan, the author of the reforms, and compassed his death in 1481. Muhammad III who was their dupe discovered his minister's innocence when it was too late and bitterly repented his action. Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk and Khudawand Khan, with the troops of Berar, left the royal camp and encamped at a distance of two leagues from it. When asked the reason of this move Fateh-ullah boldly replied that when so old and faithful a servant as Mahmud Gawan could be murdered on the lying reports of false witnesses nobody within the king's reach was safe. The wretched king, now smitten with remorse, sent a secret message imploring them to return that he might take counsel with them regarding the punishment of those who had brought Khaja Mahmud to his death, but Fateh-ullah and Khudawand Khan replied that they would shape their conduct on that of Yusuf Adil Khan, who was then absent on a distant expedition. Yusuf was at once recalled and joined Fateh-ullah and Khudawand Khan. The three tarafdars then entered the royal camp and made their demands. They did not succeed in bringing the ringleaders of the conspiracy to punishment, but Yusuf obtained the province of Bijapur, which enabled him to make provision for the followers of the deceased minister. Shortly after this the tarafars were dismissed to their provinces.

Disaffection of the tarafdars of Berar.

51. Fateh-ullah and Khudawand Khan were recalled from Berar shortly afterwards in order that they might attend Muhammad III on a progress through the Province of Bijapur. They obeyed the summons, but both on the march and in camp placed a distance between themselves and the royal camp, and saluted the king from afar when he marched. In this manner the armies reached Belgaum, whence the tarafdars were ordered to accompany the king to Goa and the Konkan, which they refused to do. Yusuf Adil Khan, how-ever, marched to the aid of Goa, then besieged by Rajashekhara of Vijayanagar, while Muhammad III marched to Firozabad. Fateh-ullah and Khudawand Khan refused to accompany him any further, and returned to Berar without leave. Muhammad felt their defection deeply, but dared not resent it, for he knew that their mistrust of him was justified, and that civil war would but hasten the disruption of his kingdom.

Accession of Mahmud Shah.

52. Muhammad Shah died of drink on March 23rd, 1482, and was succeeded by his son Mahmud Shah, a boy of twelve; all power in the capital was held by Malik Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, the principal enemy of the late Mahmud Gawan who was now minister of the kingdom. Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk, on visiting the capital to congratulate the young king on his accession, was made titular minister of the kingdom, his son Shaikh Ala-ud-din being appointed his deputy in northern Berar, but the intrigues and massacres of the capital were not to the veteran's taste, and he returned to Ellichpur without having exercised the duties of his post at the capital.

Malik Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk was assassinated before 1485 and affairs in Bidar went from bad to worse. The young king showed a precocious bent towards debauchery and the administration passed into the hands of Kasim Barid, a Turk. The tarafdars, well aware that all orders issued were the orders of Kasim Barid, ignored messages from the capital, and were practically independent, attending only occasionally with their armies when summoned to do so. This attendance only accentuated the humiliation of the nominal ruler, whose splendour was utterly eclipsed by that of the armaments which the tarafdars brought into the field.

Fateh-ullah -ul- Mulk independent.

53. In 1490 Malik Ahmad, the son of Malik Hasan 'Nizam-ul-Mulk, having founded Ahmadnagar and made Preparations for securing his independence, invited Yusuf Adil Khan of Bijapur and Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk of Gawli to join him in assuming the style and insignia of royalty. The compact was sealed by the consent of each of these three provincial governors, and each had the khutba read in the mosques of his kingdom in his own name, omitting that of Mahmud Shah Bahmani. Henceforth these rulers will be known by the titles Yusuf Adil Shah, Ahmad Nizam Shah, and Fateh-ullah Imad Shah, though Yusuf and Fateh-ullah appear to have been very chary of using the royal title.

The supremacy of Kasim Barid in the capital had, however, Convinced Fateh-ullah of the necessity for some decisive step, and the veteran statesman had already prepared himself for possible opposition by improving the defences of Gawligarh and Narnala.

Although Fateh-ullah had declared himself independent he still regarded himself, to some extent, as a vassal of the Bahmani king. Thus, in 1494, when a rebel named Bahadur Gilani, who had established himself on the western coast of the Deccan, committed in Gujarat excesses, which caused Mahmud Shah of that country to demand his punishment at the hands of Mahmud Shah Bahmani, Fateh-ullah Imad Shah, together with Yusuf Adil Shah and Ahmad Nizam Shah, responded to his old master's appeal and aided him against the rebel, who was defeated and slain after a long and arduous campaign. But the aid thus rendered differed from the submissive attendance of the tarafdars for the Sultans did not attend in person but sent contingents.

Combination against Bijapur.

54. In 1504 Yusuf Adil Shah, who was a Shiah, had the khutba read in the mosques of the Bijapur kingdom after the Shiah fashion, he being the first Muhammadan ruler in India to make this public profession of the Shiah faith. Amir Barid who had succeeded his father, Kasim Barid, in that same year sent notices in Mahmud Shah's name to Fateh-ullah Imad Shah, Khudawand Khan of Mahur, and Sultan Kuli Kutb-ul-Mulk, who had been appointed governor of Telingana and had established himself at Golconda, asking them to combine to stamp out the heresy. The result of the appeal was curious. Sultan Kuli Kutb-ul-Mulk who was himself a devoted Shiah, responded to it at once, apparently on the ground that Yusuf Adil Shah's act was a more pronounced declaration of opposition to Bahmani traditions than his mere assumption of independence, and possibly from the motive which led Innocent XI to advise James II to moderate his zeal for the propagation of Roman doctrine and practice in England. Fateh-ullah Imad Shah, and Khudawand Khan on the other hand, though both were professed Sunnis, showed very clearly their disinclination to act against their old ally, and excused themselves. As to what followed there is a conflict of authority. Firishta says that Amir Barid was much perplexed by the contumacy of the two chiefs of Berar and applied to Ahmad Nizam Shah for aid which was promptly rendered. Ali bin Aziz-ullah Tabatabai, whose dates do not agree with those of Firishta, though he is clearly referring to the same incident, writes that Mahmud Shah, on becoming aware of Fateh-ullah Imad Shah's refusal to take the field against Yusuf Adil Shah, marched into Berar, whereupon Fateh-ullah, who was no more willing to take up arms against the Bahmanid than against Yusuf, made his submission to him. Firishta's account is to be preferred, for he was, though sometimes misinformed, always impartial, whereas the author of the Burhan-i-Maasir was an uncompromising partisan of the Nizam Shahi kings and also, strangely enough, a strenuous supporter of the fiction that Mahmud Shah was as independent a king as any of his forefathers. Moreover, immediately after its account of these events, the Burhan-i-Maasir goes wildly astray in its references to Fateh-ullah Imad Shah and Yusuf Adil Shah. The following is the true account of what happened. Amir Barid with Mahmud Shah, Sultan Kuli Kutb-ul-Mulk, Ahmad Nizam Shah, and Fakhr-ul-Mulk the Deccani marched against Yusuf Adil Shah, who, finding that his external foes and the Sunnis in his own kingdom were too strong for him, left Fakhr-ul-Mulk the Turk to hold Gulbarga and the surrounding country, sent his infant son Ismail with Kamal Khan the Deccani to Bijapur, and made the best of his way, with 5,000 horse, to the territories of his old friend Fateh-ullah Imad Shah, closely pursued by the allies who followed him almost to the gates of Gawilgarh. Fateh-ullah was again greatly perplexed. He would not give up the refugee, he would not fight for the Shiah religion, and in no circumstances would he draw the sword against the Bahmani king. He therefore despatched Yusuf Adil Shah to Daud Khan of Khandesh, while he proceeded to make terms with the invaders of Berar. His methods are a fair example of the astuteness which he seems always to have brought into play in the interests of justice and toleration. He sent envoys to Ahmad Nizam Shah and Sultan Kuli Kutb-ul-Mulk to apprise them of his view of the quarrel which was that Amir Barid, well known, he said, as' the fox of the Deccan,' was not actuated in his persecution of Yusuf Adil Shah by religious scruples, but merely desired to gain possesion of Bijapur. Should he attain his object, the old diplomatist added, the position of those who held the other provinces of the kingdom would not be enviable, for Amir Barid already held the Bahmani king in the hollow of his hand and wanted but an addition to his territorial possessions to make him supreme in the Deccan. This entirely correct view of the situation impressed itself on Ahmad Nizam Shah and Kutb-ul-Mulk, who at once returned to their provinces without even going through the form of bidding Mahmud Shah farewell. The Sultan of Berar was now free to deal with the Sultan of Bidar. He represented to Mahmud that there was nothing to be gained by prosecuting the war and that the wisest course was to proclaim that Yusuf was pardoned and to return to Bidar. Mahmud Shah was inclined to accept this counsel, but Amir Barid did not intend to let Bijapur slip through his fingers so easily and was about to carry Mahmud off to besiege Bidar, but meanwhile Yusuf Adil Shah had heard of the retreat of Ahmad Nizam Shah and Kutb-ul-Mulk and returned with all haste from Burhanpur to Gawilgarh. He now took the field against Mahmud Shah, or rather against Amir Barid, who, perceiving that he was no match for Yusuf and Fateh-ullah in combination, hurriedly retreated to Bidar, leaving Berar in peace.

Death of Fateh-ullah Imad Shah.

55. The date of the death of Fateh-ullah Imad Shah is variously given as 1504 and 1510. The latter seems to be a mistake. His age when he was taken from Vijayanagar in 1422 is not given, and we are merely told that he was then a boy. Assuming his age to have been ten years he must have been 82 years of age at the time of his death. Fateh-ullah was succeeded by his son Ala-ud-din Imad Shah, of whom Firishta contradictorily says that he was the first of the dynasty to use the royal title. There can be little doubt that his father used it occasionally, certainly in his correspondence with Yusuf Adil Shah and Ahmad Nizam Shah, to whom he would not have admitted himself to be inferior, but it is likely that he refrained from using it in correspondence with the Bahmani king.

Ala-ud-din Imad Shah.

56. The early part of Ala-ud-din's reign is obscure. According to one authority he quietly succeeded his father, but according to another he was a prisoner in the fort of Ramgiri, in Telingana, at the time of his father's death, in the power of Amir Band and remained in captivity until he was rescued by one of the sons of Khuda-wand Khan of Mahur. On his release Ala-ud-din is said to have proceeded at once to Gawilgarh and to have assumed the government of his father's kingdom, while Mahmud Shah Bahmani, at the request of Yusuf Adil Shah, conferred upon him his father's title of Imad-ul-Mulk. This story is improbable. In the first place the dates are all wrong, for Fateh-ullah is represented as having died before 1500, whereas he was certainly alive in 1504, and in the second place it is highly improbable that Fateh-ullah, who had, as we have seen, great power and influence in the Deccan would have left his son- his only son so far as we know-in the hands of his greatest enemy, the fox of the Deccan.' The more probable story is that which represents Ala-ud-din Imad Shah as quietly succeeding his father in Ellichpur.

War with Ahmadnagar.

57. In 1508 Burhan Nizam Shah succeeded his father Ahmad in Ahmadnagar at the age of seven. The administration of that kingdom was in the hands of Mukammal Khan, who had been Ahmad's minister, and the Deccani nobles of the State, whose predominance was distasteful to the ' foreigners,' i e., the Persian and Turki soldiers of fortune who always formed a political party of their own in the Deccan. The foreigners conspired to overthrow the Deccanis, and on the failure of their plot fled from Ahmadnagar with 8,000 horse and took refuge with Ala-ud-din Imad Shah in Ellichpur. They found no difficulty in persuading him that the affairs of Ahmadnagar were in hopeless confusion and that the conquest of that kingdom would be an easy task. Ala-ud-din, without waiting to consider how far the interests of the fugitives had coloured their story, collected his troops from Gawilgarh and Ellichpur and marched for the frontier. Mukammal Khan was prepared and met him. After a severely contested battle victory declared itself for Ahmadnagar, and Ala-ud-din with the army of Berar fled to Ellichpur. The army of Ahmadnagar followed up its victory and laid waste the greater part of south-western Berar, pressing Ala-ud-din so hard that he deserted his country and fled to Burhanpur, where he besought Adil Khan III, the ruler of Khandesh, to use his good offices in the cause of peace. Adil Khan of Khandesh and his doctors of religion brought about a peace, but quarrels soon broke out afresh.

The affair of Pathri.

58. Burhan Nizam Shah's grandfather, Malik Hasan Nizam-ul-Mulk, was descended of a Brahman family which had held the hereditary office of kulkarni or patwari [In this case probably the Despandya watan of the pargana.] in Pathri, near the Godavari river. For some reason or another, probably the proselytizing zeal of one of the Bahmani kings, the ancestor of Hasan had fled from Pathri and taken refuge in the Hindu kingdom of Ahmadnagar. Malik Hasan, whose original name was Tima Bhat, had been captured, like Fateh-ullah Imad-ul-Mulk, in one of the campaigns against Vijayanagar, and brought up as a Muslim. When he attained to power, and the governorship of a province to the border of which his ancestral home was adjacent, his relatives flocked from Vijyanagar to Ahmadnagar and urged his son, Ahmad Nizam Shah, to include in his dominions the town of Pathri, which lay on the southern border of Berar. Mukammal Khan wrote, by command of Burhan Nizam Shah, proposing that Ala-ud-din Imad Shah should cede Pathri to Ahmadnagar in exchange for a richer pargana. Ala-ud-din refused to listen to this proposal and began to fortify Pathri. Mukammal Khan then complained that the establishment of a military post so close to the frontier would give rise to depredations on the part of the more lawless members of the garrison and consequent hostilities between Ahmadnagar and Berar. Ala-ud-din paid no heed to the protest, completed his fort and returned to Ellichpur. In 1518 Mukammal Khan, under the pretence that Burhan Nizam Shah wished to enjoy the cool air of the hills above Daulatabad and visit the caves of Ellora, collected a large army and marched in a leisurely way to Daulatabad, whence he made a sudden forced march on Pathri. The town was taken by escalade and the army of Ahmadnagar possessed itself of the whole pargana. Burhan having attained his object returned to his capital leaving Miyan Muhammad Ghori, an officer who had greatly distinguished himself in the assault, to govern the pargana with the title of Kamil Khan. Ala-ud-din Imad Shah was not strong enough to resent this aggression at the time, and though it rankled in his memory he suffered himself to be cajoled six years later by Mulla Haidar Astrabadi, an envoy from Ahmadnagar, into an alliance with Burhan Nizam Shah, who was then engaged in an acrimonious dispute with Ismail Adil Shah regarding the possession of the fortress of Sholapur. In 1524 a battle was fought at Sholapur and Ala-ud-din, whose army was opposed to a wing of the Bijapurs commanded by Asad Khan of Belgaum, was utterly defeated and withdrew by rapid marches and in great disorder to Gawilgarh, forsaking his ally. Burhan Nizam Shah was defeated and forced to retreat to Ahmadnagar.

Pathri recovered. War with Ahmadnagar and Bidar.

59. Ala-ud-din Imad Shah now perceived his error in allying himself with Burhan, and Ismail Adil Shah, anxious to weaken Ahmadnagar as much as possible, persuaded Sultan Kuli Kutb Shah in 1527 to aid Ala-ud-din in recovering Pathri. The allies succeeded in wresting Pathri for a time from Burhan, but he entered into an alliance with Amir Barid of Bidar and marched from Ahmadnagar to Pathri, the fortifications of which place, in the course of a cannonade of two months' duration, he succeeded in destroying. The place fell again into his hands and once more the pargana was annexed to Ahmadnagar and bestowed upon some cousins of Burhan Nizam Shah who still adhered to the faith of their fathers. Burhan was not disposed to regard the recapture of Pathri as a sufficient punishment for Ala-ud-din, and having captured Mahur occupied southern Berar. He now turned his eyes towards Ellichpur and formed the design of annexing the whole of Berar to his kingdom. Ala-ud-din, who had been deserted by Sultan Kuli Kutb Shah, was in no position to face the allied armies of Ahmadnagar and Bidar. He, therefore, fled from Ellichpur to Burhanpur and sought assistance from Miran Muhammad Shah of Khandesh. Miran Muhammad responded to the appeal and marched with his unfortunate ally into Berar. The armies of Berar and Khandesh met the allied armies of Ahmadnagar and Bidar in battle and were utterly defeated. We are not told where this battle was fought, but it was probably not far south of Ellichpur, towards which place the invaders had marched from Mahur, and may have been in the immediate neighbourhood of the town. Burhan Nizam Shah now held practically the whole of Berar and captured 300 elephants and the whole of Ala-ud-din's artillery and stores. Ala-ud-din and Miran Muhammad Shah fled to Burhanpur and thence sent a message to Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, imploring his assistance. Bahadur Shah snatched at the opportunity of interfering in the affairs of the Deccan and in 1528 sent a large army by way of Nandarbar and Sultanpar towards Ahmadnagar, and also entered Berar. Burhan Nizam Shah was much perturbed by the appearance of this formidable adversary on the scene. He made a wild appeal for help to Babar, not yet firmly seated on the throne of Delhi, and more reasonable appeals to Sultan Kuli Kutb Shah of Golconda and Ismail Adil Shah of Bijapur. The former was engaged in warfare with the Hindus of Telingana and professed himself unable to send assistance, but Ismail sent 6,000 picked horse and much treasure. Bahadur Shah entered Berar on the pretext of restoring Pathri and southern Berar to Ala-ud-din, but having seen the country he desired it for himself and made no haste to leave. This was very soon perceived by Ala-ud-din, who repented of his folly and ventured to suggest to Bahadur Shah that the Ahmadnagar kingdom should be the theatre of war. He promised that if Bahadur Shah would conquer that kingdom for him he would resign the kingdom of Berar. Bahadur Shah accepted the offer and advanced against Burhan Nizam Shah, who was now encamped on the plateau of Bir. Amir Barid fell upon the advancing foes and slew two or three thousand of the Gujaratis. This enraged Bahadur Shah, who sent 20,000 horse against Amir Barid. The battle soon became general, and the Deccanis were defeated and fled to Purenda. Being pursued thither they again fled to Junnar, while Bahadur Shah occupied Ahmadnagar. Here he remained until supplies, which the Deccanis cut off, became scarce. He then marched to Daulatabad and left Ala-ud-din Imad Shah and the amirs of Gujarat to besiege that fortress while he encamped on the plateau above it. Burhan Nizam Shah now made a fervent appeal to Ismail Adil Shah for further assistance. Ismail replied with expressions of goodwill, sent five hundred of his most efficient cavalry, and expressed regret that the hostile attitude of the raja of Vijayanagar prevented him from leaving his capital. Burhan wanted the prestige of Ismail's presence with his army, not a regiment of cavalry. In the circumstances he did the best he could, collected all the troops that could be raised between Junnar and Ahmadnagar, and ascended into the Daulatabad plateau. Here a battle was precipitated by the incautious valour of Amir Barid, and although the issue hung for some time in the balance, the Deccanis were again defeated. The problem now was not an equitable decision of the dispute between the kings of Berar and Ahmadnagar, but the expulsion of an inconvenient intruder who was strong enough to upset entirely the balance of power in the Deccan. Burhan Nizam Shah opened negotiations with Ala-ud-din Imad Shah and professed himself ready to restore all that had been captured by him. Ala-ud-din and Miran Muhammad Shah were now as apprehensive as their former enemies of Bahadur Shah's intentions and approached Khudawand Khan, the latter's minister, with a request that his master would leave the Deccan. Khudawand Khan replied that Bahadur Shah had not come uninvited, and that if the Sultans of the Deccan composed their differences all would be well. The intimation was sufficient. Ala-ud-din Imad Shah sent his surplus supply of grain to the defenders of Daulatabad and returned to Ellichpur. Bahadur Shah and Miran Muhammad Shah decided that they would do well to return to their capitals before the rains rendered both the country and the rivers impassable. They retreated after stipulating that the boundaries of Berar and Ahmadnagar should remain in statu quo ante bellum, that the khutba should be read in both kingdoms in the name of Bahadur Shah and that both Ala-ud-din and Burhan should pay a war indemnity. Miran Muhammad Shah, after his return to Burhanpur, called upon Burhan Nizam Shah to fulfil his obligations by restoring to Ala-ud-din Pathri and Mahur and all the elephants and other booty which had been captured near Ellichpur. Burhan's reply to this message was to return to Miran Muhammad some elephants which had been captured from him, on receiving which Miran Muhammad desisted from urging on Burhan the fulfilment of his compact with Ala-ud-din.

War with Golconda.

60. This was not the last campaign in which the warlike but unfortunate Ala-ud-din was engaged. Sultan Kuli Kutb Shah of Golconda, who had proclaimed himself independent in 1512, was for many years troubled by a Turk entitled Kivam-ul-Muik who had been appointed by Mahmud Shah Bahmani governor of eastern Telingana and resisted Sultan Kuli's claims to dominion over that tract. He maintained a guerilla warfare for years, with intermittent encouragement from Bidar and perhaps from Berar also, until he was defeated by Sultan Kuli at Gelgandal when he fled and took refuge with Ala-ud din Imad Shah in Berar. Sultan Kuli sent an envoy to Berar to demand the delivery of the fugitive and also the restoration of certain districts of south-eastern Berar which in the time of the Bahmanids had belonged to Telingana. On Ala-ud-din's refusal to satisfy these demands Sultan Kuli marched northwards and Ala-ud-din marched from Ellichpur to meet him. A battle was fought near Ramgiri and the Beraris were utterly defeated. Ala-ud-din fled to Ellichpur and Sultan Kuli possessed himself of the disputed territory and returned to Golconda. Unfortunately the date of these operations is not given, but it appears probable that they took place after the departure of Bahadur Shah of Gujarat from the Deccan. The date of the death of Ala-ud-din Imad Shah is not certain, but he probably died in 1529 and was succeeded by his son Darya Imad Shah.

Darya Imad Shah.

61. The early years of Darya Imad Shah's reign were uneventful and his kingdom enjoyed a much needed rest. In 1554 Husain Nizam Shah succeeded, not without opposition, to the throne of Ahmadnagar. His younger brother, Abdul Kadir, was induced to make a fight for the throne but was overcome and took refuge with Darya Imad Shah, under whose protection he remained until his death. Shortly after Miran Abdul Kadir's flight Saif Ain-ul-Mulk, who had been commander-in-chief of the army of Ahmadnagar in the latter part of the reign of Burhan Nizam Shah and on his death had espoused the cause of Abdul Kadir, became apprehensive lest Husain Nizam Shah should punish him for his defection, and fled to Ellichpur, where he took refuge with Darya Imad Shah. He did not remain long in Berar but took service under Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur, who interested himself in plots to dethrone Husain Nizam Shah. Ibrahim's interference brought about a war between Bijapur and Ahmadnagar and Husain sent a Brahman envoy named Viswas Rao to Darya Imad Shah to ask him for aid. Darya sent 7000 cavalry to his neighbour's assistance and Husain then advanced to Sholapur, which place Ibrahim was besieging. In the battle which ensued the armies of Ahmadnagar and Berar were on the point of fleeing when Ibrahim Adil Shah was attacked by doubts of the loyalty of Saif Ain-ul-Mulk, who commanded a large body of his cavalry, and suddenly returned to Bijapur, leaving the allies in possession of the field. Husain then returned to Ahmadnagar and sent the cavalry of Berar back to Ellichpur.

Alliance with Ahmadnagar.

62. After the death of Ibrahim Adil Shah I in 1557 Husain Nizam Shah persuaded Ibrahim Kutb shah of Golconda to join him in an attempt to capture Gulbarga and the eastern districts of the Bijapur kingdom. The attempt failed owing to Ibrahim Kutb Shah's distrust of his ally, and Ali Adil Shah, who had succeeded to the throne of Bijapur, resolved to revenge himself on Husain Nizam Shah, who sought strength in an alliance with Darya Imad Shah. In 1558 the kings of Berar and Ahmadnagar met at Sonpet on the Godavari where Daulat Shah Begam, Darya's daughter, was married to Husain, Sonpet receiving the name of Ishratabad in honour of the event.

Invasion of Ahmadnagar.

63. Meanwhile Ali Adil Shah had formed an alliance with Ibrahim Kutb Shah and Sadashivaraya of Vijayanagar and in 1560 these allies invaded the dominions of Ahmadnagar. Husain Nizam Shah's trust lay in Ali Barid Shah of Bidar, Darya Imad Shah of Berar, and Miran Mubarak II of Khandesh. Unfortunately for him influences had been at work to break up this alliance. The Khan-i-Jahan, brother of Ali Barid Shah, was friendly with Ali Adil Shah and had entered the service of Darya Imad Shah, whom he dissuaded from joining Husain Nizam Shah. He then led an army of 5,000 cavalry and infantry from Berar into the Ahmadnagar kingdom and laid waste those northern tracts which lay out of the way of the more powerful invaders from the south. Against this force Husain Nizam Shah sent nearly 3,000 horse under Mulla Muhammad Nishaburi. The army of Berar was Utterly defeated and the Khan-i-Jahan, ashamed to return to Berar, joined the army of Ali Adil Shah. Jahangir Khan the Deccani now became commander-in-chief of the army of Berar, and had an easier task than his predecessor, for by this time the members of the southern alliance had closed round Ahmadnagar and left Darya Imad Shah's army little occupation but that of plundering a defenceless country. The allies, however, quarrelled. Ibrahim Kutb Shah, who had gradually been drawn into sympathy with Husain Nizam Shah, withdrew rapidly and secretly to Golconda, leaving behind him a small force which joined Husain. Jahangir Khan with the army of Berar also went over to Husain who was enabled, by this accession of strength, to cut off the supplies of Ali Adil Shah and Sadashivaraya, who were besieging Ahmadnagar. Sadashivaraya, who perceived that he had been drawn by Ali Adil Shah into no easy undertaking, was now in a mood to entertain proposals of peace, and when Husain Nizam Shah sued for peace he agreed to retire on three conditions, one of which was that Jahangir Khan, whose activity in intercepting the supplies of the besiegers had caused much suffering among them, should be put to death. Husain was base enough to comply and the commander of the army of Berar was assassinated. Fortunately for Husain his father-in-law was either too weak or too poor spirited to resent this act of gross ingratitude, and the kingdom of Ahmadnagar was by these shameful means, freed of its invaders. Darya Imad Shah did not long survive his disgraceful acquiescence in his servant's death. He died in 1561 and was succeeded by his son, Burhan Imad Shah.

Burhan Imad Shah.

64. We have no certain information of the age of Burhan when he succeeded his father. He is described as a boy or a young man, but he was not too young to resent the murder of Jahangir Khan, for when Husain Nizam Shah and Ibrahim Kutb Shah invaded the territory of Bijapur in 1562 and Ali Adil Shah and Sadashivaraya of Vijayanagar marched against them, Burhan not only refused to respond to Husain's appeal for assistance but prevented Ali Barid Shah of Bidar from joining him. Husain Shah then abandoned the siege of Kaliyani, in which he was engaged, and sent his ladies and heavy baggage to Ausa. The kings of Ahmadnagar and Golconda now found themselves opposed by Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur, Sadashivaraya of Vijayanagar, Ali Barid Shah of Bidar, and Burhan Imad Shah of Berar, and advanced to meet them, halting within twelve miles of their camp. On the following day Husain and Ibrahim advanced against the enemy, the former making the camp of Sadashivaraya and the latter that of Ali Adil Shah, Ali Barid Shah, and Burhan Imad Shah his objective. When they were well on their way heavy rain fell, and Husain's artillery and elephants stuck fast in the mire. Any further advance was out of the question, and Husain returned to his camp with only forty out of seven hundred guns. Meanwhile Murtaza Khan with the Maratha officers of Bijapur had been sent by Ali Adil Shah to warn the allies to prepare for battle. On his way he came upon the abandoned guns of Husain Nizam Shah, and learnt that Husain had returned to his camp. Murtaza informed his master of what he had found and Ali Adil Shah and Sadashivaraya sent troops to take possession of the guns. After securing the guns these troops fell in with the forces of Ibrahim Kutb Shah, attacked them, and defeated them. Ibrahim reformed his beaten army in real of Husain Nizam Shah's camp and made a stand which enabled Husain Nizam Shah to come to his aid. The troops of Bijapur and Vijayanagar were repulsed, but Husain Nizam Shah was much dispirited by the result of the day's fighting and by Ibrahim's failure, and on the following day, when the armies of Bijapur, Vijayanagar, Berar and Bidar advanced to the attack, he and Ibrahim Kutb Shah fled in the direction of Ahmadnagar, leaving their camps in the hands of the enemy. At Ausa they separated, Ibrahim returning to Golconda, while Husain retired on his capital, followed by the allies. Husain did not venture to defend his capital but, having provisioned the fortress, fled onwards to Junnar. When the allies sat down to. besiege Ahmadnagar the Hindus of Vijayanagar committed great excesses, destroying mosques and other buildings and ravishing Muhammadan women. Ali Adil Shah had good reason to be ashamed of his allies, and thinking that a march would give them less opportunity of misbehaving themselves than the comparative leisure of a siege, persuaded Sadashivaraya to leave Ahmadnagar and to pursue Husain Nizam Shah to Junnar, but before the allies left Ahmadnagar Burhan Imad Shah and All Barid Shah, disgusted wilt the insolence of the Hindus, retired to their own kingdoms. On Burhan's return to Berar he was seized and imprisoned in Narnala by Tufal Khan the Deccani, one of his own amirs, who henceforth exercised regal functions in Berar. Tufal Khan refused to join the confederacy of the Muhammadan Sultans of the Deccan which was formed in 1564 for the purpose of over-throwing the power of Vijayanagar and Berar had, therefore, no share in the decisive victory of Talikota. Tufal Khan's refusal to join the Muhammadan league may be attributed to his sense of the insecurity of his position as an usurper, to apathy, to Hindu sympathies, or to the view that the power of Vijayanagar could always be usefully employed for the maintenance of the balance of power between the Muhammadan kingdoms of the Deccan, but the refusal, whatever the motive may have been, brought much trouble and suffering to Berar.

Invasion of Berar.

65. In June, 1565, Husain Nizam Shah died and was succeeded in Ahmadnagar by his son, Murtaza Nizam Shah I, who persuaded Ali Adil Shah to join him in invading Berar in order to punish Tufal Khan for his refusal to join, the league against Vijayanagar. The allies invaded the kingdom from the south and south-west and devastated it with fire and sword as far north as Ellichpur, destroying all standing crops. They remained in Berar, wasting the country and slaughtering its inhabitants until the approach of the rainy season, when Tufal Khan approached Ali Adil Shah with an enormous quantity of treasure and besought him to use his influence to induce Murtaza to retire. Ali undertook the task and succeeded in persuading Murtaza, on the pretext that the rains would render marching and campaigning on the black cotton soil of Berar a difficult task, to retire to Ahmadnagar, while he himself returned to Bijapur.

Annexation of Berar by Ahmadnagar.

66. The unfortunate little kingdom was not, however, destined to enjoy a long rest. In 1572 Changiz Khan, Murtaza Nizam Shah's minister, brought about a meeting be-tween his master and Ali Adil Shah at which the two kings entered into a treaty under the terms of which Murtaza was to be allowed to annex Berar and Bidar without hindrance from Bijapur while Ali was to be allowed to appropriate so much of the dismembered kingdom of Vijayanagar as should be equal in revenue to those two kingdoms. Ibrahim Kutb Shah was left out of the arrangement. In the same, year Murtaza Nizam Shah, in pursuance of the treaty, encamped at Pathri and prepared to invade Berar. A pretext was not wanting. He sent Mulla Haidar of Kash to Tufal Khan to call him to account for keeping Burhan Imad Shah in confinement. Tufal Khan was ordered to release his king, to be obedient to him in all things, and to refrain from interfering in the government of Berar. The letter concluded with a threat that disobedience would entail punishment and with three couplets warning Tufal Khan against undertaking a task which was beyond his power. Tufal Khan was much alarmed by this message and took counsel of his son, Shamshir-ul-Mulk, who had a reputation for valour and was astute enough to detect Murtaza's object. The solicitude for Burhan Imad Shah, he said, was a mere pretence, and Murtaza's object was the annexation of Berar to Ahmadnagar. He bade his father take heart, assuring him that the resources of Berar were equal to those of Ahmadnagar, which was not the case, and advised him to send Murtaza's envoy back unanswered. Murtaza, as soon as he heard of Mulla Haidar's dismissal, marched from Pathri towards Ellichpur, and Shamshir-ul-Mulk, who commanded the advanced guard of the army of Berar, marched to meet him. The site of the battle is, unfortunately, not recorded, but the armies must have met either in the Amraoti District or the Akola District. Shamshir-ul-Mulk fell upon the advanced guard of the army of Ahmadnagar and defeated it. Changiz Khan threw forward reinforcements and Shamshir-ul-Mulk called upon his father for support. Tufal Khan at once marched to support his son and Changiz Khan, being apprised of the approach of the main body of the army of Berar, sent forward Khudawand Khan, Jamshid Khan, Bahri Khan, Rustam Khan, and Chanda Khan to the support of the African amirs of Ahmadnagar, on whom the brunt of the fighting was falling, and followed them in person with Murtaza's guards and three thousand mounted ' foreign' archers, who were evidently regarded as the flower of the army of Ahmadnagar. The battle soon became general. Changiz Khan, who had as his body-guard five hundred of his own followers, spared no efforts to win the day. With his own hand he cut down Tufal Khan's standard bearer, and the army of Berar was routed. Tufal Khan and his son fled to Ellichpur and Changiz Khan returned with 270 captured elephants to the camp of Murtaza Nizam Shah, who no longer made any attempt to conceal the real object of his enterprise. He did not hasten in pursuit of his defeated enemy or attempt to gather at once the fruits of victory, but remained in his camp and issued farmans to all the Hindu revenue officials of Berar informing them that they had nothing to fear, and that if they would tender their allegiance to him they would find him a lenient and sympathetic master. The descendant of a line of Brahman patwaris knew with whom he had to deal. The hereditary Hindu officials cared little for Burhan, Tufal, or Murtaza but much for the blessings of peace, and they were not slow to perceive which was the stronger side. They hastened to the camp of the invader, where they were received with honour and whence they were dismissed with rewards and promises. Murtaza Nizam Shah, having thus made sure his foothold, advanced on Ellichpur, whereupon Tufal Khan and Shamshir-ul-Mulk, whose power had been so utterly broken in the field that the respite afforded to them by Murtaza's delay had profited them nothing, fled into the Melghat. Through the hills and jungles of this tract they were pursued for six months at the end of which time they found themselves hemmed in by the forces of Ahmadnagar in a position whence no outlet was apparent. The invader refrained from pressing his advantage and Tufal Khan succeeded in extricating himself and escaped to Burhanpur. Murtaza, having pursued him as far as the Tapti, sent a letter to Miran Muhammad Shah II, king of Khandesh, threatening to invade his country if the fugitives were harboured. Miran Muhammad sent the letter, without comment, to Tufal Khan, who at once understood that he could find no asylum in Khandesh and returned by an unfrequented road to Berar. At the same time he sent a letter to Akbar, then seated on the throne of Delhi, saying that he regarded himself as one of the emperor's soldiers and Berar as a province of the empire, which bad been invaded by the Deccanis. He sought, he said, the appointment of warden of the marches and asked for assistance, promising to surrender Berar to Akbar's officers when they should arrive. Akbar was not at this time prepared to undertake an expedition to the Deccan and no immediate answer was returned to Tufal Khan's effusion. Meanwhile both Tufal Khan and his son Shamshir-ul-Mulk now separated were hard pressed by Murtaza and were fain to seek the protection afforded by stone walls. Tufal Khan shut himself up in Narnala while Shamshir-ul-Mulk sought refuge in Gawilgarh, and Murtaza Nizam Shah laid siege to Narnala Meanwhile Tufal Khan's letter had reached Akbar's camp in Gujarat and one of the emperor's amirs wrote to Murtaza Nizam Shah saying that Tufal Khan, having submitted to the emperor, was one of his vassals and that Murtaza would do well to desist from harassing him, and that Berar, which was a province of the empire, should be evacuated at once. This absurdly bombastic message was treated with the con-tempt which it deserved and both Narnala and Gawilgarh were closely besieged. The former fell before the end of the year, and Tufal Khan and Burhan Imad Shah fell into Murtaza's hands. Shamshir-ul-Mulk on hearing of the fall of Narnala and the capture of his father surrendered Gawilgarh to Murtaza's officers on condition that his life should be spared. Murtaza Nizam Shah sent Burhan Imad Shah, Tufal Khan, Shamshir-ul-Mulk, and all their relatives and attendants, to the number of about forty souls, to a fortress in the Ahmadnagar kingdom where, after a short time, they all perished. We have various accounts of the manner of their death and in one passage it is hinted that they may possibly have died a natural death, but the sudden, simultaneous, and convenient extinction of so large a number of obnoxious persons cannot have been fortuitous. Another story is that the whole party was confined in a small room and the windows were shut upon them, the result being a tragedy similar in all respects to that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, save that in this case there were no survivors. Elsewhere it is said that the whole party was strangled or smothered individually. The Black Hole story appears to be the most probable, but whichever story is true the fact remains that the Imad Shahi dynasty was utterly extinguished in 1572 [There is a discrepancy as to this date. From the detailed account of tile siege of Narnala it appear that the fortress did not fall until 1574, but the date of its fall is also given in a chronogram which works up to 962-1572 A.D.] and that Berar became a province of the Nizam Shahi kingdom of Ahmadnagar.

Berar a province of Ahmadnagar.

67. Murtaza apportioned the districts of Berar to his nobles, and now wished to return to Ahmadnagar and enjoy the fruits of victory, but Changiz Khan incited him to further exertions. Ali Adil Shah, he said, was occupied with the siege of Bankapur, and the opportunity of gaining possession of Bidar, to which as well as to Berar, his treaty with Bijapur entitled him, was too good to be lost. Murtaza was thus persuaded to march against Bidar, and while he was thus employed affairs in Berar took a new turn. Miran Muhammad II of Khandesh seized the opportunity of harassing an inconveniently powerful neighbour, and, as soon as Murtaza Nizam Shah was engaged with Bidar, set up the son of Burhan Imad Shah's foster mother as king of Berar alleging that he was a son of Darya Imad Shah and sent the pretender to the frontier of Berar. with 6,000 horse. Many adherents of the extinct family either believed the fable or were willing to adopt any pretext for maintaining the independence of Berar, and rose in rebellion, driving the officers of Murtaza Nizam Shah from their military posts. The rebels numbered eight or nine thousand, and their activity was a serious menace to the stability of the newly established authority. Khudawand Khan and Khurshid Khan, the two officers who had been appointed to administer Berar, sent a message to Murtaza Nizam Shah inploring him to return. The king recalled Changiz Khan, who had preceded him to Bidar, despatched Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari with 8,000 horse to Berar and followed him with the main body of the army. Changiz Khan returned from Bidar by forced marches and begged the king to make a short halt in order that the troops might rest. Murtaza Nizam Shah refused to listen to the proposal and pressed on. Miran Muhammad Shah, who was hovering on the border of Berar, ready to make a descent as soon as Murtaza Nizam Shah should be safely out of the way, was much disconcerted by his adversary's activity and fled in haste to his fortress capital of Asirgarh. The army of Ahmadnagar now invaded and laid waste Khandesh and Asirgarh was on the point of falling into their hands when Miran Muhammad Shah bought off Murtaza Nizam Shah with a large sum of money. Murtaza Nizam Shah now returned to Berar where, in the course of a complicated intrigue connected with the invasion of Bidar, he poisoned Changiz Khan in 1574. He then returned to Ahmadnagar and in 1575 appointed Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari governor of Berar. The new governor was assisted in his administration of the province by a large number of amirs, the chief of whom were Khudawand Khan the muwallad, [I.e., a man of foreign descent born in the Deccan of an Indian mother.] Jamshid Khan, Bahri Khan Kazilbash, Rustam Khan the Deccani, Chaghtai Khan the Turkman, Tir Andaz Khan Astrabadi, Shir Khan Tarshizi, Husain Khan Tuni, Chanda Khan the Deccani, and Dastur the eunuch.

Rumours of invasion from the north.

68. In 1576 it was reported that Akbar was preparing to invade the Deccan. Murtaza Nizam shah, now sunk in sloth and debauchery, made a feeble and confused effort to take the field. He was better served in Berar than he deserved. Bahrain Khan, who was commandant of Gawilgarh under Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari, put the fortress into a state of thorough repair and has left a record of his zeal in an inscription on the bastion which bears his name. The chronogram in the inscription gives the date A.H. 985 equivalent to A.D. 1577. Fortunately these precautions were unnecessary, for Akbar's journey was no more than a trip from Agra to Ajmer and back, and Ahmadnagar and Berar were left for a time in peace. The rumour of danger from the north had, however, galvanized the wretched Murtaza Nizam Shah into something like activity, and early in 1578 Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari was summoned to Ahmadnagar in order that he might parade the army of Berar before the king. This effort to secure military efficiency in the frontier province had most unfortunate results. Murtaza Nizam Shah's unworthy favourite Sahib Khan, a Deccani, grossly insulted one of the foreign officers of the army of Berar, with the result that the old quarrel between the foreigners on one side and the Deccanis and the Africans on the other was renewed. A fight followed in Which the king identified himself with the Deccanis, whereupon most of the foreign officers left his service and entered that of Golconda and Bijapur. In the confusion which followed Salabat Khan grasped the reins of government and Murtaza Nizam Shah was left powerless. He attempted to recover possession of Sahib Khan and bespoke the good offices of Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari to this end, but the Saiyid was unable, and probably unwilling to save the wretch and Sahib Khan was ultimately slain by Khudawand Khan, one of the amirs of Berar. Salabat Khan was now regent of Ahmadnagar and Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari retained the governorship of Berar. In 1584 Salabat Khan sent an order to Jamshid Khan Shirazi, who has been already mentioned as one of Saiyid Murtaza's officers, directing him to join an embassy which was about to leave Ahmadnagar for Bijapur. As the order had not been counter-signed by Murtaza Nizam Shah, Jamshid Khan replied that he could not obey it without the sanction of his superior officer, Saiyid Murtaza. The latter was much annoyed by Salabat Khan's assumption of the right to communicate an order to Jamshid direct, and refused to permit Jamshid to leave his post in Berar. The quarrel reached such a point that Saiyid Murtaza Sabzawari assembled the army of Berar and marched towards Ahmadnagar with the intention of over throwing Salabat Khan, but the amirs at the capital intervened and brought about a temporary peace, and Saiyid Murtaza returned to Berar. Towards the end of the same year the quarrel was renewed and Saiyid Murtaza of Berar again marched on Ahmadnagar. Salabat Khan advanced to meet him, defeated him, and pursued him through Berar, and Saiyid Murtaza and his lieutenant fled by way of Burhanpur to the court of Akbar. Meanwhile Shahzada Burhan, a brother of Murtaza Nizam Shah, had been persuaded by a party in Ahmadnagar to make an attempt to dethrone Murtaza and seize the throne. The plot was frustrated by Salabat Khan and Burhan was forced to flee in the guise of a darvesh to the Konkan whence he reached Gujarat and joined Akbar's court.

Mughal raid on Berar.

69. Akbar now resolved to attempt the conquest of the Deccan and ordered his foster-brother, Mirza Aziz Kuka entitled Khan-i-Azam, who was then governor of Malwa, to assemble the army of Malwa and march against Ahmadnagar, taking Burhan with him. Salabat Khan replied by sending 20,000 horse to Burhanpur. Mirza Muhammad Taki who commanded this force, succeeded in attaching Raja Ali Khan of Khandesh to the cause of Ahmadnagar despite an attempt by the Khan-i-Azam to secure his adherence to the imperial cause. The Khan-i-Azam's expedition was delayed by a quarrel between him and Shahab-ud-din Ahmad Khan, the governor of Ujjain and Mirza Muhammad Taki and Raja Ali Khan carried the war into the enemy's country and encamped over against the Khan-i-Azam at Handia. The Khan-i-Azam was unwilling to risk a battle, but by a rapid night march eluded the Deccanis and entered Berar by a circuitous route. The Mughal horse plundered Ellichpur, hastened thence to Balapur, and before the Deccanis, who had turned back from Handia to meet them, could come up with them, retreated by way of Nandarbar into Malwa. Raja Ali Khan then returned to Burhanpur and Mirza Muhammad Taki to Ahmadnagar. Akbar did not at once pursue his project of adding the Deccan to his empire and Berar had peace for a few years.

Accession of Ismail Nizam Shah.

70. In June, 1588, Murtaza Nizam Shah, who had attempted to destroy his son Miran Husain by setting fire to his bedding, was, in return, suffocated in his bath by the prince, who succeeded him as Husain Nizam Shah II. Husain II was put to death after a reign of less than two months and the amirs of Ahmadnagar raised to the throne Ismail, the son of the fugitive Burhan. Jamal Khan, who had been one of Saiyid Murtaza's lieutenants in Berar, was now regent in Ahmadnagar. He belonged to the heretical sect of the Mahdavis and in the name of Ismail Nizam Shah, who was too young to understand theological disputes, established their religion in Ahmadnagar with the result that the kingdom became a refuge for most of the Mahdavis throughout India. The amirs of Berar were much annoyed by the spread of the heresy and in 1589 released Salabat Khan, who had been imprisoned by Murtaza Nizam Shah in Kherla, and induced him to lead them against Ahmadnagar, while Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur invaded the kingdom from the south. Jamal Khan defeated the amirs of Berar at Paithan on the Godavari, then the southern boundary of the Province, and the Bijapuris at Ashti. Salabat Khan made his peace with Jamal Khan and returned to his jagir to die.

Burhan's first attempt to gain his kingdom.

71. In 1590 the time was ripe for the invasion of Berar and the Deccan by Akbar. The amirs of Berar were disaffected and disgusted with the heterodox doctrines now fashionable at the court of Ahmadnagar and the elevation to the throne of the young Ismail, the son of the emperor's protege Burhan, furnished Akbar with a pretext for aggression. He offered Burhan as many troops as he should consider necessary for the purpose of gaining the throne of his ancestors, now unjustly held by his son, but Burhan had no desire to reign at Ahmadnagar as Akbar's puppet and declined the proffered aid. Akbar then bestowed upon him the pargana of Handia in jagir and gave him letters to Raja Ali Khan of Khandesh, who was ordered to render him all the assistance in his power. Burhan took up his quarters at Handia and issued letters to the principal officers and landholders of Berar and the rest of the Ahmadnagar kingdom reminding them that he was their lawful king and exhorting them to be faithful to him. These letters were well received and Burhan received many assurances of loyalty and offers of assistance, including one from Jahangir Khan the African, warden of the northern marches of Berar. Burhan now entered Berar, with a small force of horse and foot which he had collected, by way of the Melghat, but Jahangir Khan had repented of his promise, and attacked and defeated the small army, forcing Burhan to retire to Handia in great disorder. From Handia he went to Burhanpur where he sought assistance from Raja Ali Khan who received him kindly and not only promised him aid but invoked the aid of Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur who, smarting under the recent defeat of his forces by Jamal Khan, readily sent an army northwards. Jamal Khan again defeated the Bijapuris but had not recovered from the fatigues of the fight when he heard that the nobles of Berar had declared for Burhan, who was on the point of entering Berar.

The story of the campaign which followed need not be recounted in detail here. Burhan and Raja Ali Khan defeated and slew Jamal Khan at Rohankhed in the Buldana District and captured the young Ismail. The whilom protege of Akbar now ascended the throne of Ahmadnagar as Burhan Nizam Shah II, and appointed Nur Khan governor of Berar.

The Mughals invited to Ahmadnagar.

72. Burhan died on April 29th, 1595, after a troubled reign of rather more than four years, and was succeeded by his elder son Ibrahim Nizam Shah, who had been previously passed over in favour of his younger brother Ismail on the score that his mother was a negress and his personal appearance unkingly. The affairs of the State were now in the utmost confusion. Rival factions contended at the council board while Ibrahim Adil Shah on the south and Akbar on the north prepared to invade the kingdom. Ibrahim Nizam Shah after a reign of less than four months was slain in battle with the Bijapuris, and a faction attempted to raise to the throne Ahmad, son of Shah Tahir, who had pretended to be the son of Sultan Muhammad Khudawand, one of the sons of Burhan Nizam Shah I. But the circumstances of Shah Tahir's birth had already been secretly investigated, and there were those at the capital who knew the details of the inquiry and published them. Nevertheless the impostor's faction held the field for a time, and when they were hard pressed in Ahmadnagar they sent a message to Sultan Murad, Akbar's fourth son, and implored him to come from Gujarat to their aid. Murad had a general commission from his father to attempt the conquest of Berar and Ahmadnagar whenever the time should seem propitious and at once made preparations to invade the Deccan. Meanwhile, however, an unexpected quarrel in the camp of those who opposed the impostor's claims enabled Miyan Manjhu, his chief supporter, to emerge from Ahmadnagar and attack them. He defeated them on October 1st, 1595, and, deeming himself now strong enough to dispense with foreign aid, began to regret his invitation to Murad. Murad, however, was already on his way and when he reached the borders of the Ahmadnagar kingdom with the Khan-i-Khanan, Abdur Rahim and Raja Ali Khan of Khandesh, Miyan Manjhu leaving Ansar Khan, in whose charge was Chand Bibi, in command of Ahmadnagar, fled with his protege Ahmad to Ausa, where he attempted to raise an army and to enlist the aid of Ibrahim Adil Shah II and Muhammad Kuli Kutb Shah of Golconda.

Cession of Berar to Akbar.

73. Chand Bibi soon asserted her supremacy in Ahmadnagar and had Bahadur, the infant son of Ibrahim Nizam Shah, proclaimed king in place of the impostor set up by Miyan Manjhu. The imperial army meanwhile closely besieged Ahmadnagar, and though Sultan Murad did not succeed incapturing the city he was only bought off by a treaty of peace concluded in April, 1596, one of the conditions of which was the cession of Berar to the empire. On the conclusion of peace Murad occupied Berar which thus became once more, after the lapse of two centuries and a half, an appanage of the crown of Delhi. After the withdrawal of the imperial army Bahadur Nizam Shah was seated on the throne of Ahmadnagar while the pretender Ahmad was provided for by the Sultan of Bijapur.

During the early days of the Mughal occupation of Berar the old capital, Ellichpur, lost some of its importance. In the first place its distance from the Ahmadnagar frontier and from the high road between Hindustan and the Deccan, which ran through the western corner of Berar, rendered its selection as a military capital impossible, and in the second although Berar had been ceded to the empire by treaty the fortresses of Gawilgarh and Narnala were held by amirs of Ahmadnagar and the slothful Murad was not anxious to besiege them. He therefore made Balapur his principal military post, and built himself a palace at a village about twelve miles west of that town.

Death of Murad and fall of Ahmadnagar.

74. Hostilities with Ahmadnagar were renewed by an attempt to seize Pathri, and on February 8th,1597, the Khan-i Khanan was defeated at Sonpet on the Godavari by the troops of Ahmadnagar aided by contingents from Bijapur and Golconda. On the following day, however, he retrieved his defeat and put the allied Deccanis to flight: Having returned to Jalna, his headquarters, the Khan-i-Khanan ordered the despatch of troops to Gawilgarh and Narnala, but Murad now interfered, and announced his intention of taking the field against Ahmadnagar, and when the Khan-i-Khanan insisted that the fortresses of Northern Berar should first be reduced Murad wrote to his father and com-plained of the Khan-i-Khanan's apathy. In 1598 that officer was recalled and Abul Fazl was sent to the Deccan in his place with orders to reduce Gawilgarh and Narnala, which duty he carried out. He failed, however, to send aid to the Mughal governor of Bir who, having been defeated anil wounded in the field, was besieged in that fortress, and reported to Akbar Abul Fazl's failure to come to his aid. Akbar now recognised that the only officer capable of managing affairs in the Deccan was the Khan-i-Khanan, whose only fault was his intolerance of the slothful and drunken Murad. The difficulty was solved by the death of Murad in 1599 at Shahpur, his palace near Balapur, from the effects of drink and incontinence. Sultan Daniyal, Akbar's youngest son, was now sent to the Deccan under the tutelage of the Khan-i Khanan. In the same year (1599) Ahmadnagar was captured by the Khan-i-Khanan and Asirgarh by Akbar and Sultan Daniyal became governor of Khandesh-now renamed Dandesh-Berar and Ahmadnagar.

The Ain-i-Akbari.

75. A detailed account of Berar was added to the Ain-i-Akbari in 1596-97, immediately after the treaty of Ahmadnagar under which the province was ceded to the empire, and as the Mughal officers cannot have had time, before the account was written, to settle the province and readjust boundaries of its administrative divisions we may regard this description as an account of the province as it was administered by the Nizam Shahi and Imad Shahi kings, and probably also by the Bahmanids. It was divided into thirteen sarkars, or revenue districts, of which the largest and richest was Gawil, which contained forty-four parganas and corresponded roughly with the Amraoti District. Some of its parganas lay beyond the present limits of the District, e.g., Sirson (Murtizapur), Mana, Karanja Bibi, Manba, Papal and Kamargaon, now in the Akola District, Ner Parsopant in the Yeotmal District, and Arvi and Ashti in the Central Provinces. The District was assessed at rather more than 28 lakhs of land revenue and 2½ lakhs of suyarghal or assignments for the pay of troops. Amraoti, not being a pargana town, is not mentioned. Ellichpur is described as ' a large city and the capital' and Gawilgarh as ' a fortress of almost matchless strength' containing a spring at which weapons of steel were watered. Against two of the parganas of the Melghat we find such entries as ' 100 cavalry, 2,000 infantry-Gonds,' which indicate that the Korkus of the Melghat, described by Abul Fazl as by the Deccani historian and by British administrators of a later day as ' Gonds,' were duly assessed for military service.

Malik Ambar.

76. After the imprisonment of Bahadur Nizam Shah in Gwalior in 1599, Malik Ambar the African, the most powerful remaining adherent of the Nizam Shahi dynasty, raised to the throne Murtaza Nizam Shah, the son of Shah Ali, one of the sons of Burhan I., and established him in the fortress of Ausa. It is unnecessary to pursue through all its details the story of the long conflict which Ambar carried on with the amirs of the empire, but reference will be made to the struggle so far as it affected the Amraoti District.

In 1605 Sultan Daniyal died of drink in Burhanpur and in October of the same year Akbar died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Salim, who assumed the title of Jahangir

In 1610 Malik Ambar recaptured Ahmadnagar, which had been held for the emperor by Khaja Beg Mirza Saffavi, and overran nearly the whole of Berar which for the greater part of Jahangir's reign was more often in the hands of Malik Ambar than in those of the imperial officers. So far as the land revenue was concerned the administration was probably do-amli each party collecting what it could, but the Mughals regarded Burhanpur as their chief stronghold in the Deccan, and though a military post was usually maintained at Balapur their hold in Berar can have been but slight. In 1617 Sultan Khurram, Jahangir's third son, was appointed to the command of the troops in the Deccan, and on the arrival of this energetic prince the imperial cause revived and the Mughals strengthened their hold on Berar. Sultan Khurram was recalled later in the year and received the title of Shahjahan.

Malik Ambar occupies Berar.

77. In 1620 Malik Ambar drove the Mughals from Berar and occupied not only that Province but Khandesh also. Shahjahan was now sent to Burhanpur with a large force. He relieved that city, which was beleaguered by the Deccanis and drove the latter through Berar, pursuing them as far as Khirki [Afterwards named Aurangabad.] which place he laid waste after defeating Malik Ambar in the field. Berar was thus once more in the hands of the Mughals. In 1622 Shahjahan rebelled against his father, drawing into rebellion with him Darab Khan, the governor of Berar. After extensive operations in Hindustan and Gujarat the prince was pursued by his brother Parvez through Berar to Mahur, whence he fled to Golconda. The Deccanis, in spite of Shahjahan's rebellion, effected no lodgment in Berar, which remained in the hands of Parvez, who appointed Asad Khan Mamuri governor of Ellichpur. In 1624, however, Yakut Khan the African marched through Berar and besieged Burhanpur, but fled when he heard of the approach of the Khan-i-Khanan and Parvez who had been temporarily transferred to Bengal in consequence of Shah-jahan's appearance in arms in that Province.

Treachery of the Khan -i- Jahan.

78. In 1625 Shahjahan submitted to his father and was pardoned, and in 1626 Parvez, now governor of Berar and the Deccan, died in Burhanpur of colic and epilepsy brought on by excessive drinking. In the same year Malik Ambar died, in the eightieth year of his age, and his place was taken by his son Fateh Khan. Later in the same year Umdat-ul-Mulk Khan-i-Jahan, who had been sent to the Deccan in consequence of the renewed activity of Murtaza Nizam Shah and Fateh Khan, sold the Balaghat of Berar to the Deccanis for twelve lakhs of rupees. This treasonable bargain did not directly affect the Amraoti District, but it must have thrown the affairs of the whole province into great confusion.

Jahangir died on November 9th, 1627, and in the course of the ensuing disputes regarding the succession, the affairs of the Deccan fell into great confusion, and between the Khan-i-Jahan, who was plotting with the enemy entirely for his own hand and other imperial officers who favoured the cause of Shahryar, Shahjahan's youngest brother, the fortunes of the Mughals in Berar and the Deccan were at a very low ebb.

Accession of Shahjan.

79. Shahjahan ascended the imperial throne in Agra on February 15th [So the Padishah-nama. The Muntakhab-ul-lubub has February 14th and the Tuzak-i-Jahangiri March 5th.] 1628, and was thereafter free to attend to the affairs of the empire. At the beginning of his reign the Khan-i-Jahan was still governor of Berar and Khandesh, but his bargain with the Deccanis was disturbed for the officers of Murtaza Nizam Shah evacuated the Balaghat in obedience to an imperial farman. The Nizam Shahi comman-dant of Bir alone held out and the Khan-i-Zaman was sent against him. When this officer advanced Murtaza Nizam Shah sent a force of 6,000 Maratha horse under Sahuji Bhonsla to threaten his line of communication with Burhanpur and this force operated in the northern taluks of the Amraoti and Akola Districts and in Khandesh. Unfortunately for the schemes of the Deccanis the commandant of Bir surrendered, and Darya the Rohilla, who held a jagir in the Amraoti District, fell upon Sahuji's Maratha horse and dispersed them. The Khan-i-Jahan was now summoned to court and deprived of his title, whereupon he fled to the Deccan and entered the service of Murtaza Nizam Shah and on Murtaza refusing to surrender him Shahjahan set out for the Deccan at the end of 1629, reaching Burhanpur early in 1630, where he was joined by Iradat Khan who had been appointed governor of Berar, Khandesh, and the Deccan in the place of the disgraced Khan-i-Jahan. In the campaign which followed Shahjahan's arrival at Burhanpur the Deccanis were driven from the Balaghat of Berar which they had again occupied, but it does not appear that the Amraoti District was the scene of hostilities unless the village of Talegaon, which was captured and burnt by the Deccanis, were Talegaon Dashasar. The war lasted until the fall of Daulatabad in 1633, but the Mughals had now advanced well into the Deccan and though the Amraoti District, with the rest of Berar, suffered severely from demands for supplies for the forces in the field it was freed from the curse of war within its borders.

Famine.

80. In 1630 the rains failed completely in Berar and the Deccan and partially elsewhere, and this calamity, combined with the heavy tax which the war had placed upon the tracts which it most affected, produced one of the most severe famines ever known in Berar. ' Buyers were ready to give a life for a loaf, but seller was there none. The flesh of dogs was sold as that of goats and the bones of the dead were ground with the flour sold in the market, and the punishment of those who profited by this traffic produced yet direr results, men devoured one another and came to regard the flesh of their children as sweeter than their love. The inhabitants fled afar to other tracts till the corpses of those who fell by the way impeded those who came after and in the lands of Berar, which had been famous for their fertility and prosperity, no trace of habitation remained.' This account, taken from the official record of Shahjahan's reign, is obviously hyperbolical, but cannot be dismissed as entirely imaginary. Berar had suffered much from protracted hostilities during which it had been the prey of hostile armies which had little respect for the rights of property, and the measures of relief undertaken were utterly inadequate.

Redistribution of Deccan provinces.

81. On November 27th, 1634, Shahjahan issued a farman reorganizing his territories in the Deccan. Hitherto the three subahs of Khandesh, Berar, and the conquered districts of Nizam Shahi dominions had formed a province under one provincial governor, whose headquarters were usually at Burhanpur. Under Shahjahan's redistribution scheme those parganas of the sarkar of Handia which lay to the south of the Nerbudda were transferred from Malwa to Khandesh and Berar. Khandesh, and the districts taken from Ahmadnagar, were formed into two subahs or divisions, the Balaghat on the south and the Payanghat on the north. This arrangement dismembered, for a time, the old province of Berar, for the line dividing the two new subahs followed the line of the edge of the plateau of the Balaghat, running, approximately, from Rohan-khed on the west to Sawargaon on the Wardha river, on the east. The Amraoti District was thus included in the Payanghat division, the subahdar of which was the Khan-i-Dauran, while Sipahdar Khan, a valiant soldier, was subordinate to him at Ellichpur.

The Deccan provinces again redistributed. Aurangzeb.

82. This scheme of reorganization was very soon amended. In 1636 Shahjahan appointed his third son, Aurangzeb, to the viceroyalty of the Deccan, where the possessions of the empire were redistributed into four subahs or divisions-(i) Daulatabad and Ahmadnagar, the nominal capital of which was Daulatabad, while Aurangzeb resided at Khirki, which he re-named Aurangabad, (2) Telingana which included those tracts of north-western Telingana, which had been annexed to the empire, (3) Khandesh, the administrative capital of which was Burhanpur, while its principal military post was Asirgarh, and (4) Berar, the. capital of which was Ellichpur, ' in the neighbourhood of which lay the fortress of Gawil, situated on the crest of a hill and noted for its great strength.' Each of these divisions was governed by a subahdar in immediate subordination to Aurangzeb as viceroy, and the Khan-i-Dauran was retained as subahdar of Berar, with Sipahdar Khan as deputy governor in Ellichpur.

Campaign in Golconda and Gondwana.

83. In 1637 the Khan-i-Dauran with Sipahdar Khan and the army of Berar undertook an expedition through the northern district of the kingdom of Golconda, where they collected tribute and thence they marched through the sarkar of Paunar to besiege Nagpur, which was held for Kokiya, the Gond ruler of Deogarh. The army of Berar was joined by Kiba, the Gond ruler of Chanda and Nagpur was taken. It was probably at this time that the sarkar of Deogarh was added to the province of Berar.

In 1642 Shah Beg Khan, a commander of 4,000 horse, was appointed subahdar of Berar in place of the Khan-i-Dauran and two years later Allah Vardi Khan was made a commander of 5,000 horse and received Ellichpur in jagir on the death of Sipahdar Khan.

Accession of Aurangzeb and siege of Golconda.

84. Early in 1658 Aurangzeb left the Deccan in order to participate in the contest for the imperial throne which ensued on the failure of Shahjahan's health, and in 1659 having worsted his competitors he gained the prize. He appointed Raja Jai Singh to the viceroyalty of the Deccan and made Irij Khan subahdar of Berar. In 1675 Irij Khan was removed to make way for the Khan-i-Zaman, but in the following year he was reappointed subahdar of the province.

In 1680 Sambhaji, the son of Shivaji, overran Berar and did much damage, especially to the standing crops, and after passing through Berar he plundered Burhanpur and burnt seventeen of its suburbs in the short period of four days which elapsed before he was driven off.

In 1685 Irij Khan died and Husain Ali Khan was appointed to succeed him as subahdar of Berar. He governed the province through a deputy, Razi-ud-din Khan, who died in 1686 and was succeeded by Muhammad Momin Khan, a relative of Irij Khan. In the same year Husain Ali Khan died and Mahabat Khan was appointed subahdar of Berar in his place, Muhammad Sadik being appointed his deputy. Husain Ali Khan's unexpected death was a misfortune for the province for he is mentioned as one who excelled his fellows in valour and leadership, and as a well-wisher of the people, a speaker of the truth and an upright man. Such men were not common in the Deccan in the days in which he lived.

In the same year, while the siege of Golconda was in progress, Berar was called upon to supply material of war and cattle. In 1687, after the fall of Golconda, Aurangzeb appointed his youngest son, Muhammad Kam Bakhsh, subahdar of Berar. At some time after this the prince was relieved of his appointment, for towards, the end of 1697 he was again appointed to the governorship and Mirak Husain was appointed as his deputy. In 1698 Askar All Khan the Hyderabadi was appointed subahdar in place of the prince. Maratha raids.

Maratha raids.

85. In 1699 Rajaram, who, since the death of his brother Sambhaji, had been continually a fugitive from the imperial troops, collected a large army and appeared in Berar with the avowed intention of conquering the province. His troops, after the fashion of Maratha armies, laid the country waste and destroyed towns and villages, and he succeeded in enlisting the aid of Bakht Buland, the Gond raja of Deogarh, who notwithstanding his acceptance of Islam, was but a lukewarm adherent of Aurangzeb. Bedar Bakht, the eldest son of prince Muhammad Azam, was sent against the disturbers of the peace, and drove them from Berar.

In 1702 Lutf-ullah Khan was appointed subahdar of Berar with Ghazi-ud-din Khan Firoz Jang, father of Asaf Jah, as his deputy, but Lutf-ullah died before he could reach Ellichpur and the deputy succeeded as subahdar and Sarandaz Khan was appointed deputy. The latter was removed in 1703 and Rustam Khan, who held the post until the end of Aurangzeb's reign, was appointed in his place. In 1704 the Marathas were again active in Berar and Firoz Jang marched north-wards from Ellichpur in pursuit of Nima Sindhia.

Accession of Bahadur Shah.

86. On March 4th, 1707, Aurangzeb died at Ahmadnagar and was shortly afterwards buried at Rauza, afterwards called Khuldabad, near the caves of Ellora and about seven miles from Daulatabad. The usual conflict for the throne followed the death of the emperor and victory finally declared for Shah Alam, the eldest surviving son, who ascended the throne under the title of Bahadur Shah. Firoz Jang at first held Berar for prince Muhammad Azam by whom he was transferred, as subahdar, to the Province of Gujarat, but the cautious amir was a lukewarm partisan and readily made his peace with Bahadur Shah who confirmed him in his appointment in Gujarat.

Towards the end of 1707 Zul-fikar Khan Nusrat Jang was viceroy of the whole of the Deccan, and it was now that the officers of the imperial army first began to enter into regular agreements with the Marathas for the payment of the blackmail known as chauth and sardeshmukhi.

Accession of Farrukhsiyar.

87. Bahadur Shah died in 1712 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Muizzuddin who took the title of Jahandar Shah. On his death the two Saiyid brothers of Barha, who were now all-powerful at Delhi, raised to the throne Farrukhsiyar. It was in his reign, in 1718, that the imperial court first disgraced itself by formally acknowledging the claim of the Marathas to chauth and sardeshmukhi. In consideration for refraining from ravaging Berar and the other five subahs of the Deccan these freebooters were to be allowed to collect for themselves one-quarter of the revenue under the name of chauth and in addition to this a further proportion of one-tenth under the name of sardeshmukhi, which was regarded as a recompense for the trouble and expense of collecting the chauth. It was the imperial recognition of these claims which laid the foundation of that system of government known as do-amli, afterwards to prove so ruinous to Berar, which has been admirably described by Sir Alfred Lyall: 'Wherever the emperor appointed a jagirdar the Marathas appointed another and both claimed the revenue while foragers from each side exacted forced contributions so that the harassed cultivator often threw up his land and helped to plunder his neighbour.'

Plots of the Saiyids and accession of Muhammad Shah.

88. It is not necessary to follow in detail the course of the intrigues of the Saiyid brothers at Delhi. After deposing Farrukhsiyar and setting up two nonentities to succeed him, they raised to the throne in 1719 Raushan Akhtar, who took the title of Muhammad Shah. In 1720 they hatched a plot against Asaf Jah Nizam-ul-Mulk, son of Ghazi-ud-din Firoz Jang; and sent him as subahdar to Malwa in the hope that he would either be disgraced in the vain attempt to quell the disturbances which they fomented against him or would rebel. To their disappointment he was joined by all the men of importance in Malwa and also by his uncle Iwaz Khan, subahdar of Berar. Alam Ali Khan, the nephew of the Saiyids, who was viceroy of the Deccan, now appointed Anwar Khan subahdar of Berar but he too joined Asaf Jah. The plot of the Saiyids failed. Asaf Jah met their nephew, Alam Ali Khan, at Balapur and there defeated and slew him. He then returned to Delhi and was appointed subahdar of Gujarat while his son Ghazi-ud-din Khan Firoz Jang was appointed to Malwa. In 1722 he received news that his Province of Gujarat and his son's Province of Malwa were overrun by the Marathas, and he therefore obtained permission to leave Delhi for the purpose of expelling the intruders. While he was setting the affairs of Malwa in order he learnt that Mubariz Khan the subahdar of Hyderabad, whom be had believed to be devoted to his interests, had been bribed by the Saiyids with the promise of the viceroyalty of the Deccan to take up arms against him and was even then marching to meet him. At the same time he heard that his son Firoz Jang, who held the post of prime minister of the empire as his deputy, had been superseded in Delhi.

Asaf Jah obtains the Viceroyalty of the Deccan.

89. He therefore set out for the Deccan to meet Mubariz Khan, whom he defeated and slew at bhakarkhelda [Renamed Fatehkhelda by Asaf Jah to commemorate his victory.] in the Buldana District on October 13th, 1724. The date is an important one in the history of Berar and the Deccan for the battle of Shakarkhelda established the virtual independence of the Deccan under the Nizams of Hyderabad. Neither Chin Kilij Khan Nizam-ul-Mulk nor any of his successors at Hyderabad ever assumed the style of independent sovereigns, but they settled questions of succession among themselves, made all appointments in the six subahs of the Deccan and behaved in all respects as independent rulers with the exception that their coin bore the name of the reigning emperor and that the imperial recognition of each succession was purchased by large presents and professions of subservience. Shortly after, if not before, the death of Asaf Jah the Bhonsla rajas of Nagpur were recognized as mokasadars or assignees of the Marathas' share of the revenues of Berar, and they maintained their collecting officers in the province under the do-amli system already described until the conclusion of the second Maratha war in 1803.

In 1738 Raghuji Bhonsla took advantage of the absence of Asaf Jah in Delhi to invade Berar, and defeated and slew Shujat Khan the subahdar in the neighbourhood of Ellichpur. It was probably at this time that the fortresses of Gawilgarh and Narnala, which were held by the Bhonslas, except for a short period, until the end of the third Maratha war, passed into his possession.

Disputes regarding the succession in Hyderabad.

90. On June 2nd, 1748, Asaf Jah died on the bank of the Tapti river on his way from Burhanpur to Daulatabad, and was succeeded in the Deccan by his son Nasir Jang. In 1750 Nasir Jang was succeeded by his brother Salabat Jang who on the death of Saiyid Sharif Khan Shujat Jang in June, 1752, appointed Saiyid Lashkar Khan Nasir Jang to the vacant appointment of subahdar of Berar. In the same year Ghazi-ud-din Khan, the eldest son of Asaf Jah, having been appointed by the emperor Ahmad Shah viceroy of the Deccan, advanced as far as Aurangabad to secure his heritage, but in Aurangabad he died suddenly, from cholera according to one account, but according to another from poison administered by or at the instance of Salabat Jang's mother. Salabat Jang spent the rainy season of 1753 in Aurangabad where Saiyid Lashkar Khan subahdar of Berar, who had now received the title of Rukn-ud-daulah, was appointed vazir of the Deccan, which appointment he resigned after a few months, leaving the finances of the State in a deplorable condition. Ghazi ud-din Khan, in order to attach the Marathas to his cause, had assigned to them the revenues of all the northern districts of the Deccan and Raghuji Bhonsla, on the pretext of Ghazi-ud-din's promise, had collected and retained the whole of the revenue of Berar. One of the first acts of Samsam-ud-daulah, who had succeeded Rukn-ud-daulah as minister, was to send against Raghuji an army which succeeded in forcing him to disgorge five lakhs of rupees-an utterly inadequate share of his plunder. In 1754 Raghuji Bhonsla died and Rukn-ud-daulah returned to Berar as subahdar. He was displaced in 1756 in favour of Mir Nizam Ali, the brother of Salabat Jang, who on his appointment as subahdar of Berar received the title of Nizam-ud-daulah. Nizam-ud-daulah now marched into Berar, where his presence was required, and encamped at Ellichpur. While he was halting here Bapu Karandiya, Bhonsla's lieutenant, invaded the province and advanced as far as Borgaon where Nizam ud-daulah met and defeated him. The treaty of peace which was concluded was not, however, sufficiently stringent in its terms to prevent the Marathas from continuing their depredations in Berar.

Accession of Nizam Ali and civil war.

91. In 1761 Nizam-ud-daulah, who had already received the titles of Asaf Jah and Nizam-ul-Mulk, deposed his brother and became ruler of the Hyderabad State. In 1763 he appointed Ghulam Saiyid Khan governor of Berar, but removed him in 1764 to Daulatabad and replaced him in Berar by Ismail Khan the Afghan.

In 1773 Zafar-ud-daulah, 'who had been engaged in suppressing a rebellion in Nirmal and had pursued some of the rebels into Berar, conceived the idea that Ismail Khan was harbouring them. He wrote to him accusing him of treason and Ismail sent an indignant reply. The correspondence between the two amirs became so acrimonious that Ismail, as a precautionary measure, strengthened the fortifications of Ellichpur, whereupon Zafar-ud-daulah reported to Rukn-ud-daulah, Nizam Air's minister, that the governor of Berar was meditating rebellion and asked for permission to march against him. Rukn-ud-daulah, who did not doubt Ismail's fidelity and was both to see the resources of the State frittered away in civil war, returned no reply to this request, and Zafar-ud-daulah, either taking his silence for consent or affecting to believe that the urgency of the case was sufficient to justify him in acting on his own responsibility, invaded, Berar and in June besieged Ismail in Ellichpur. On hearing that the conflict which he had tried to prevent had broken out Rukn-ud-daulah hastened to Ellichpur and patched up a temporary peace between the two disputants.

Affairs at Nagpur. Overthrow of Ismail Khan in Berar.

92. In 1775 Nizam Ali, taking advantage of the existence of a strong party opposed to Mudhoji Bhonsla in Nagpur, sent Ibrahim Beg against him, and himself advanced as far as Ellichpur. Mudhoji, unable to cope at the same time with his foreign and domestic enemies, obtained a cession of hostilities by causing Gawilgarh and Narnala to be surrendered to the Mughal officers and submitted himself, with his son Raghuji, to Nizam Ali in Ellichpur. Here the wily Maratha, by the humility of his demeanour, succeeded in obtaining better terms and in consideration of his agreeing to co-operate with the Nizam's troops in suppressing the Gonds, Gawilgarh and Narnala were restored to him. At the same time Nizam Ali's eldest son, Ali Jah, was appointed subahdar of Berar. Ismail Khan was in disgrace. Rukn-ud-daulah, who had befriended him, had been killed and his place had been taken by Ismail's former enemy, Zafar-ud-daulah. Before Rukn-ud daulah's death Ismail Khan, fearful of the effect of Zafar-ud-daulah's intrigues at court, had left Ellichpur without leave and presented himself before Nizam Ali. This breach of official etiquette was made the pretext for his degradation and he was informed that a jagir had been assigned to him in Balapur and that he had been degraded to the position of governor of that District. The message delivered to him was purposely made as galling as possible. He was ordered to vacate Ellichpur and appear before Nizam Ali and was advised that his surest avenue to favour was to apply for an interview through Zafar-ud-daulah. The headstrong Afghan refused so to humiliate himself, and on this refusal being reported to Nizam Ali, Zafar-ud-daulah was sent against Ellichpur, and was closely followed by Nizam Ali himself. Ismail Khan marched out of Ellichpur and attacked Zafar-ud-daulah with great determination, but though the vigour of the attack threw the enemy into confusion for a time, the garrison of Ellichpur was no match for the army of Hyderabad. Ismail Khan was surrounded and overpowered and when he fell his head was severed from his body and sent to the Nizam. Nizam Ali marched on, and on May 14th encamped at Ellichpur and made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Abdur Rahman. Zafar-ud-daulah was rewarded for this victory with the title of Mubariz-ul-Mulk. Bahrain Jang was appointed Ali Jah's lieutenant in Berar, Saiyid Mukarram Khan was appointed Diwan of the province, and a Hindu, Sham Rao, was made faujdar of Ellichpur.

Attempt to oust the Marathas.

93. In 1783 Bahram Jang was removed from his appointment in Berar and was succeeded by Zafar-ud-daulah's son Ihtisham Jang. Zafar-ud-daulah had died in the mean-time and his title was bestowed upon his son. The second Zafar-ud-daulah was intent on breaking the power of the Marathas in Berar and was preparing to besiege Gawilgarh and Narnala and expel the Maratha revenue collectors from Berar when Mudhoji Bhonsla became aware of his designs and complained to Nizam Ali that the governor of Berar was meditating the violation of treaty agreements. Zafar-ud-daulah was therefore removed and Muhammad Kabir Khan, one of the jagirdars of the province, was appointed in his place. In 1790 Muhammad Kabir gave way to Salabat Khan, the elder son of Ismail Khan. In 1792 Buhlul Khan, Salabat Khan's younger brother, was appointed subahdar of Berar and Aurangabad. Buhlul was a debauchee with a taste for architecture and spent all the revenues which his able Diwan, Khaja Bahadur, could squeeze out of the province on his pleasures and his hobby. He was summoned to Hyderabad and ordered to render an account of his stewardship, which proved to be so unsatisfactory that he was thrown into prison, where he remained for some years, and officers were sent to search his house in Ellichpur. If they expected to discover hoarded money they were disappointed for Buhlul had spent the money as he received it.

Disturbance in Ellichpur and siege of Gawilgarh.

94. The deputy governor of Berar in 1801 was Gangaram Narayan, who in that year caused an emcute in Ellichpur. He introduced a new tax apparently for the purpose of augmenting his private income, and attempted to levy it from all the habitants of the town alike, including soldiers and other customary exemptees. The malcontents rose and attacked the fort of Ellichpur. When they burst in, the wretched Gangaram threw himself on their mercy and promised never more to offend them. Thus were the people satisfied and the power and prestige of the government held up to scorn.

On December 5th, 1803, General Arthur Wellesley, having defeated the Marathas at Argaon on November 29th, arrived at Ellichpur on his way to Gawilgarh, which was held for Raghuji Bhonsla by the Rajput Beni Singh. On the 7th Wellesley marched to Deogaon, below the southern face of the fort, sending Colonel Stevenson and his division by a route about thirty miles in length through the hills with the object of attacking the fort from the north. From the 7th to the 12th Stevenson's division suffered great hardships, dragging the heavy ordnance and stores by hand over roads which the troops themselves made for the occasion. On the 12th Stevenson occupied Labada, a village, now deserted, on the col which connects the Gawilgarh hill with the Chikalda plateau, and just north of the fort, near the present cemetery. On the night of the 12th Stevenson erected two batteries opposite to the north face of the fort, where the principal attack was to be delivered and on the same night Wellesley's division erected a battery on a hill under the southern gate, the Pir Fateh darwaza, but this battery was of little use save to distract the enemy's attention from the attack on the north face, for the heavy iron guns could not be moved to the top of the hill, and the brass guns produced but little effect. On the morning of December 13th all the batteries opened fire on the fort, and by the night of the 14th the breaches in the northern face were practicable and all arrangements had been made for storming the place. The storming party consisted of the flank companies of His Majesty's 94th Regiment and of the native corps in Stevenson's divisions and was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Kenny of the 1st battalion of the 11th Madras Native Infantry (now the 81st Pioneers). It was supported by the battalion companies of the 94th and Lieutenant-Colonel Halyburton's brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Macleane's brigade being in reserve, and the attack was delivered at 10 A.M. on the 15th. At the same time Wellesley delivered two attacks from the south. One was directed against the southern gate, the attacking party consisting of the 74th Highlanders, five companies of the 78th Highlanders and the 1st battalion of the 8th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry (afterwards the 8th Madras Infantry) under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace of the 74th, and the objective of the other party, which consisted of the remaining five companies of the 78th Highlanders and the 1st battalion of the 10th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry (afterward the 10th Madras Infantry), under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Chalmers, was the north-western gate.

These two attacks from the south were destined merely to distract the enemy's attention from Stevenson's attack on the north, unless it should be found possible to blow the gates in. Neither of the two gates was blown in, but Chalmers' column was able to perform a useful service for it arrived at the north-western gate at the same time as a detachment sent forward by Stevenson, whose first attack had been successful, to establish communication with Chalmers, and in time to intercept considerable numbers of the enemy who were flying from that detachment through the gate. Chalmers was thus enabled not only to enter the outer fort without difficulty, and thus join forces with Stevenson for the attack on the northern face of the inner fort, but also to destroy large numbers of the fleeing enemy.

Fall of Gawilgarh.

95. The next task of the besiegers was to effect an entrance into the inner fort, the wall of which had not been breached, and some ineffectual attempts were made to force an entrance by the Delhi gate which is the strongest gate in the fort and is exceedingly well provided with flank defences on the Indian system of fortification. A place was then found where it was possible to scale the wall and Captain Campbell, with the; light company of the 94th, fixed the ladders, escaladed the wall, and opened the Delhi gate to the storming party. After a brief resistance the fort was in the possession of Wellesley's troops, but the slaughter of the enemy was very great, especially at the gates. The bodies of the kiladar and Beni Singh were found amidst a heap of slain within the Delhi gate. Some of the Rajputs, and among them these two officers, had attempted to perform the rite of jauhar before sallying out to meet their assailants, but fortunately the work was clumsily done, for of twelve or fourteen women only three were found to be dead and a few others wounded. The survivors were treated with respect and were well cared for.

The British losses were very small, considering the nature of the operation. Among the British troops three officers were wounded, of whom two, Lieutenant-Colonel Kenny already mentioned, and Lieutenant Young of the 2nd battalion of the 7 th Madras Native Infantry died, and five rank and file were killed and fifty-nine wounded. The casualties among native troops were eight killed and fifty-one wounded. Lieu-tenant-Colonel Kenny was buried at Ellichpur and Lieu-tenant Young near the spot where he fell. Around the latter's grave the Chikalda cemetery wall is built.

General Sir Jasper Nicolls in his diary praises the personal bravery of Beni Singh and the kiladar, but adds that they did not seem to be able to frame any regular plan for the defence of the inner wall, or to have infused much of their own spirit into their sepoys. It is, indeed, evident from the insignificance of the besiegers' losses, that the victories of Assaye and Argaon had awed the troops of the Marathas, and the defence of the fort was far from being resolute. The difficulties with which the attacking force had to contend arose principally from the nature of the country. Stevenson's arduous march through the hills has already been described. Of this feat Wellesley wrote: the troops in his division went through a series of laborious services, such as I never before witnessed, with the utmost cheerfulness and perseverance,' Wellesley's own division was less severely tried, but the erection of a battery on the hill under the southern gate must have entailed much heavy labour, and their operations on 15th must have been most exhausting, even to the Highlanders of the 74th and 78th Regiments, for the approaches to the fort from the south are exceedingly difficult.

Treaties of Deogaon and Anjangaon.

96. Two days after the fall of Gawilgarh a preliminary treaty was signed at Deogaon, Wellesley's headquarters, by which Raghuji Bhonsla agreed to withdraw from the plains of Berar to the east of the Wardha river, retaining, however, the fortresses of Gawilgarh and Narnala, and the Melghat. This treaty, which was described by the Governor. General in a private letter to his brother as ' wise, honourab'e, and glorious,' was followed by another with Sindhia, signed on December 30th at Anjangaon in the Daryapur taluk, These two treaties brought the second Maratha war to an honourable conclusion.

Civil and Military adminstration.

97. Raja Mahipat Ram, who had commanded the subsidiary force supplied by the Nizam rewarded with the governorship of Berar, but intrigued against the minister in Hyderabad, was degraded, and then openly rebelled against the Nizam. After giving some trouble he took refuge with Holkar, in whose dominions he was assassinated. In 1806 Raja Govind Bakhsh succeeded him as subahdar of Berar and Aurangabad. In 1813 Vithal Bhagdeo of Karasgaon, who has left as a monument of himself in his native town a fort of fine sandstone, was appointed deputy governor of Ellichpur. Throughout these changes Salabat Khan held a large jagir at Ellichpur for the purpose; of maintaining the Ellichpur brigade, consisting of two battalions of infantry and 1600 horse which were reported by the Resident Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Russell in 1817 as being among the best troops in the Nizam's army. The infantry battalions were incorporated in the Hyderabad Contingent. Salabat Khan's jagir was resume from his son Namdar Khan in 1832.

Third Maratha war, Pindari war Treaty of 1822, and the Assignment.

98. The District was not affected by the war of 1817-18, but the Peshwa, after his defeat by Lieutenant-Colonel Adams at Siwani in the Yeotmal District, fled northwards through the District into the Satpura hills.

The treaty of Deogaon had left the Melghat with its two fortresses in the hands of the Bhonslas and the tract served as a refuge and stronghold for rebels and outlaws, the most notorious of whom was Sheikh Dulla, whose depredations in the hills, and excursions into the richer plains extended over some years. The District was not the scene of any important action during the Pindari war, though it had suffered from the ravages of these marauders. The wall which surrounds the town of Amraoti was built in 1807 as a protection against their inroads, and there was some local fighting for the khunari ('bloody') wicket in this wall is said to be so called from 700 persons having fallen in a fight close to it in 1818.

In 1822, after the conclusion of the Pindari war, a fresh treaty was made whereby the tracts lying to the east of the Wardha were ceded to Nagpur, and the Melghat, with its fortresses, Gawilgarh and Narnala, was restored to the Nizam. By the same treaty the claims of the Marathas to chauth were extinguished, but this provision benefited Berar little, for extravagance and maladministration at the capital led to the farming out of the province to usurers, and these extortioners reduced it to a condition of great misery, which was enhanced by the famine of 1833.

In 1853 the District, with the rest of Berar, was assigned to the East India Company in satisfaction of the debt due on account of arrears of pay disbursed to the Contingent and as security for the pay of that force in future.

The Mutiny and the treaty of 1881.

99. The troubles of 1857 scarcely affected Berar, and Tantia Topi who attempted, by forcing his way through the Melghat, to escape from Hindustan into the Deccan was turned back. Meadows Taylor who was Deputy Commissioner during a portion of this time praises the loyalty of the Melghat Rajas in repelling emissaries sent by the mutineers to raise the Deccan. In 1858 the fortress of Gawilgarh was dismantled, and in 1861 the treaty of Assignment was revised, the Nizam receiving several advantages in return for his staunchness in the Mutiny.

Administration since the Assignment. Progress since Mutiny.

100. When the province first fell into the hands of the Company it was divided into two districts, South Berar (the 'Bala Ghat') with its headquarters at Hingoli and North Berar with headquarters at Buldana. The latter district included the whole Payanghat valley, that is to say the present Amraoti District, the northern half of Akola and part of Buldana. After the Mutiny Hingoli with the neighbouring country was restored to the Nizam, and the province reconstituted into East Berar with headquarters at Amraoti, and West Berar with headquarters at Akola. In 1864 the Yeotmal District, at first called the South east Berar and later the Wun District, was separated from Amraoti and in 1867 the Ellichpur District, which at first included the taluk of Morsi, subsequently restored to Amraoti, was formed. In 1903 the treaties of Assignment were superseded by an agreement under which the Nizam leased Berar to the Government of India in perpetuity in return for an annual rent of twenty-five lakhs, and the administration of the Province was transferred from the Resident at Hyderabad to the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces. After this transfer, in 1905, the Districts of the Province were redistributed and the Ellichpur District was once more amalgamated with Amraoti, while the Murtizapur taluk was transferred from Amraoti to Akola.

Since 1857 the history of the District has been the record of a steady increase of prosperity, which received a sudden stimulus from the American Civil War, which increased the demand for Indian cotton, and was only temporarily checked by the season of scarcity in 1896-97 and the famine of 1899-1900.