CROSSING OVER TO 1565 AD
In this play by Girish Karnad, we watch the unraveling of one of India's great empires, the Vijayanagara empire, at the Battle of Talikota in 1565 AD.
For the first time since I began this project, I decided to read a play. I picked one by the late Girish Karnad written originally in Kannada. The reason for my choice was simple. I returned from my trip to Chile in the wee hours of Monday and promptly fell sick on Tuesday. While I hauled myself about like a zombie and stayed in bed for the most part, Crossing To Talikota offered a swift read.
One of the most preeminent kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent was the Vijayanagara empire fortified by King Krishnadevaraya, a military strategist hailed as one of the greatest rulers in Indian history. What has been of particular interest to me in the context of theses posts is that Krishnadevaraya was a polyglot, a scholar and a patron of literature. Fluent in Kannada, Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil, he presided over the golden age of Telugu literature; under his patronage, the languages and the arts flourished. Besides, he was a writer, too; Krishnadevaraya wrote the Telugu work Amuktamalyada and a Sanskrit play, Jambavati Kalyana.
On one fateful week in 1565, the Vijayanagara Empire that soared to such heights under his rule was defeated by a coalition of four Muslim sultanates. Its capital at Hampi was conquered, pillaged and destroyed by Sultanate armies.
The wealth and fame of the empire was known around the world and it inspired visits by medieval European travelers such as Domingo Paes, Fernão Nunes, and Niccolò de' Conti who left written records of their tours. These travelogues, contemporary literature and epigraphy in the local languages, and modern archeological excavations at Vijayanagara extol the history and power of this 16th century empire.
In Crossing to Talikota, Karnad has attempted to understand and show how one of the greatest military empires of the 16th Century might have collapsed after just a single battle. The play opens with the scene of looting at Hampi. The King, Ramaraya, is missing; his younger brother has lost an eye after an arrow pierced it in battle.
Guard One: Can’t see in the dark, sir. But all the gold and silver in the goldsmith’s quarters is being heaped out into the streets. Mounds of it. Gold, diamonds, precious stones—they’re not even killing each other for it. There’s so much to grab. Jewelry, gold, silk. Precious stones. Heaped on the pavements.
Hearing the news of imminent loss, the king’s mother dies in her bed; the queen consumes poison. With such a dreadful opener, Karnad then proceeds to unravel the fascinating story of intrigue, power and greed. In one memorable scene, the young Muslim king Adil Shah, Sultan of Bijapur, has an audience with King Ramaraya, the son-in-law of the great Krishnadevaraya. Adil Shah is in raptures during the meeting.
Sir, I am a prince of Bijapur, but I have grown up in the immense shadow of Ramaraya, the Lord of Vijayanagar, who towers over the whole of Deccan. To meet you now, in person, is a privilege I never thought was written in my horoscope. But for that meeting to happen in the city of Vijayanagar places me among the chosen of the Heavens.
The work is an attempt to imagine how the fall came about. We begin to see how Ramaraya is an insecure leader at best; years after he wrested control from the late ruler’s nephew (whom he has imprisoned in the castle), he still believes his lineage, the Chalukya lineage, never deserved what it was owed.
By the time the story ends, we see a very different Adil Shah who has now married the daughter of the Sultan of a neighboring state. His allegiance has shifted, like those of the other Sultans, and Adil Shah now harbors misgivings about Ramaraya, the man to whom he once felt he owed so much. Consider his words below.
But I agree he’s becoming arrogant. Overbearing. In the last several months he has never missed a chance to snub me by pointing out what I owe him. It had started right at the beginning, of course. When he was returning home after sending me the keys of Kalyan, he casually took over the forts of Udgir and Bagalkot. When I sought an explanation, he didn’t even want to meet my messenger.”
Despite his standing, Ramaraya, insecure and immature as he is, makes a costly mistake right at the moment when he proceeds to placate the Sultan of Ahmednagar. Crossing to Talikota is a testament to how great power demands the greatest diplomacy. Often, however, power is accompanied by acute insecurity.
What’s impossible to imagine is how five hundred years after the end of the Vijayanagara empire, the understanding between people across borders in India is still so tenuous. The states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have so much in common; yet we fight over water. The dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery River goes back to 1890, with roots in the pre-independence era when the then princely states of Mysore (now Karnataka) and Madras (now Tamil Nadu) contended for control over the river's waters. As they say in French, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Girish Karnad was prolific and this is the second play I’ve read from a shelf of his works. I met his son, Raghu Karnad, last fall at the South Asian Literature And Arts Festival and when I asked him which of the plays he would recommend that I read, he told me to pick up Nagamandala. Karnad wrote, three kinds of plays: Historical plays such as Tughlaq and The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, those based on Indian mythological stories (Nagamandala is one such) and plays that are reflections on contemporary society. A few years ago, I read Boiled Beans on Toast (2012) which explores the ways in which values in the city of Bangalore have changed.
A playwright, film-maker, and actor, Karnad wrote in Kannada and translated his plays into English. A few weeks ago, I read U. R. Ananthamurthy’s Samskara, and in my post I shared a link to the award-winning movie based on the novel which features Girish Karnad in the main role. The International Theatre Centre of UNESCO, Paris, declared this virtuoso the World Theatre Ambassador of the International Theater Institute, Paris. He was honored with the Padma Bhushan and was also conferred the prestigious Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi awards.
I’ve heard it said by many friends that if I haven’t experienced the ruins of the Vijayanagara empire at Hampi, I really haven’t seen India at all. Hampi has remained elusive to me thus far, unfortunately, even though it’s barely 400 miles from Chennai. The few photographs that I’ve shared here sent by friends will, hopefully, have given you an idea of its grandeur.
Crossing to Talikota was a look at how everything in life can be destroyed within no time at all. Aside from the transience of even the most supreme of man’s achievements, one other thing reached out to me from the pages of this play, that the only thing that remains of us are the stories told about us and our achievements. Can we conduct ourselves honorably enough even in the most egregious circumstances of our lives?
I found it very poignant that Karnad's Introduction in this book is dated just two months before his death. He was prolific until the very end.
Hampi just blew my mind away. I spent a few days there as part of my research and I cannot wait to go back. The history is fascinating. Here's some suggested reading if you'd like to learn more. Srinivas Reddy has written a brilliant book, Raya, about Krishnadevaraya and the Vijayanagar empire, and he has also translated KDR's Amuktamalyada. Vasudhendra's Tejo Tungabhadra, written in Kannada and available in the English translation, is historical fiction and of course there is Salman Rushdie's Victory City, with his trademark mix of brilliance and madness.