The war of the goldsmith’s daughter

01The story

Firishta says a Brahmin told Deva Raya of a girl named Parthal, a goldsmith’s daughter of Mudgal, and the king sent troops to bring her; the family fled and the raiders plundered the district. Firuz Shah invaded in revenge and laid siege to Vijayanagara. The siege failed to take the city, but the Bahmani army ravaged the country around it. Deva Raya made peace by giving his own daughter to Firuz, with Bankapur as dowry, and Parthal was married to Firuz’s son.

02What can be trusted

The romantic frame of the story is Firishta’s, and historians treat it with caution; no Vijayanagara source mentions Parthal. The marriage alliance and the cession of Bankapur, a strong fort in the north-west of the kingdom, are more widely accepted. Deva Raya I went on to build the great dam on the Tungabhadra and the canals that watered the capital, and his successors fought the Bahmanis again within a few years.

Dynasty · 1336–1646 CEVijayanagara Empire (Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva, Aravidu)Founded in 1336 on the Tungabhadra by the brothers Harihara and Bukka, Vijayanagara held the south for Sanatan Dharma for more than two centuries. Four dynasties ruled it; its city at Hampi was among the largest in the world before its fall in 1565.Read →