Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh India

Raja Raja also expands his conquests in the north and northwest.

Before his fourteenth regnal year, around 998–999, Raja Raja conquers Gangapadi (Gangawadi) and Nurambapadi (Nolambawadi), which form part of the present Karnataka State.

This conquest is facilitated by the fact the Cholas have never lost their hold of the Ganga country from the efforts of Sundara Chola.

Nolambas, who are the feudatories of Ganga, who form the chief bulwark against the Chola armies in the northwest, could have turned against their overlords and aided the Cholas to conquer the Gangas.

The invasion of the Ganga country is a success and the entire Ganga country will be under the Chola rule for the next century.

The easy success against the Gangas is also due to the disappearance of the Rashtrakutas around 973, as they had been conquered by the Western Chalukyas.

From this time, the Chalukyas become the main antagonists of Cholas in the northwest.

To counter the interference of the Western Chalukyas, Raja Raja supports Saktivarman I, an Eastern Chalukya prince who is in exile in the Chola country.

He invades Vengi in 999 to restore Saktivarman to the Eastern Chalukya throne.

The Delhi sultans' failure to hold securely the Deccan and South India results in the rise of competing southern dynasties: the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate (1347-1527) and the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire (1336-1565).

Zafar Khan, a former provincial governor under the Tughluqs, had revolted against his Turkic overlord and proclaimed himself sultan, taking the title Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah in 1347.

The Bahmani Sultanate, located in the northern Deccan, lasts for almost two centuries, until it fragments into five smaller states in 1527.

The Bahmani Sultanate adopts the patterns established by the Delhi overlords in tax collection and administration, but its downfall is caused in large measure by the competition and hatred between deccani (domiciled Muslim immigrants and local converts) and paradesi (foreigners or officials in temporary service).

The Bahmani Sultanate initiates a process of cultural synthesis visible in Hyderabad, where cultural flowering is still expressed in vigorous schools of deccani architecture and painting.

A city has grown up around Golconda fort in south-central India, but lack of space for expansion in the had prompted Mohammed Quli, the fifth Sultan of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, to call his advisers to search for a new virgin wooded elevated land site near a river, and one devoid of any man-made structures or monuments.

The city concept is planned on a gridron pattern with an iconic monument as the main foci.

Built from 1589 on the Musi River five miles (eight kilometers) east of Golconda in 1589, the planned site had been named as the City of Hyder after the title of the Fourth Caliph Ali, although many people believe that the city of "Hyderabad" was named after the people as their residence as "City of the Brave" from the Persian words "Hyder/Haider" (Persian and Urdu meaning lion or brave) and "Abad/Abaad" (Persian and Urdu meaning abode or populated) after their having survived the plague epidemic that had ravaged Golkonda.

There is another urban myth and folklore, probably apocryphal, that the Sultan had named it after his wife Hyder Mahal (it is unlikely, however, that he would given his spouse a male name or title).

The Sultan in 1591 orders the construction of the Charminar, a tall structure from which to survey the urban development and to keep watch over the river banks flooding the nearby areas, the source of grave epidemics of the kind the recent end of which this tower structure is built to commemorate.

The Asaf Jahis of Hyderabad control the territory north and east of Mysore, while the Marathas control portions of what is today Karnataka.

By the close of the "medieval" period, most of South India is either ruled directly from, or under tribute to the Nayak dynasty or the Wadiyars of Mysore.

Aurangzeb accidentally captures Sambhaji and other leaders; he executes them barbarously after severe torture.

Maratha resistance proves stubborn, however, and the war continues under Sambhaji’s brother Rajaram.

It is the rare state in eighteenth-century India that wholly throws off all pretense of allegiance to the Mughals.

Rather, the Mughal system of honors and titles, as well as Mughal-derived administrative terminology and fiscal practices, has spread apace despite the deterioration of imperial power.

The Mughals in the 1720s theoretically claim rights over a far larger area than had ever been the case under Akbar, Jahangir, or Shah Jahan.

This area includes large parts of southern India, over which central rule is never actually consolidated.

The Marathas, taking advantage of their somewhat ambiguous relations with the Mughals, and claiming to be the agents of Delhi, often make partial claims on the revenues of these areas, as cauth and sardesmukhi.

This is the case, for example, in Mysore in the 1720s and '30s.

Mysore had come under the sovereign umbrella of the Mughals in the late 1690s, as the result of an embassy sent to Aurangzeb by Chikka Devaraja Vadiyar, the ruler of Mysore at the time and the the most notable of Mysore's early kings.

In effect, this means that Mysore is to pay a periodic tribute (peshkash) to Mughal representatives in the south, but there is a problem in doing so.

As Mughal authority in the Deccan and the south is itself fragmented, several possible channels of tribute exist.

Mysore thus seeks to make use of this ambiguity, playing off Chin Qilich Khan (known by the title Nizam-ul-Mulk), a powerful Mughal noble who in these years had founded a dynasty at Hyderabad, against the Mughal representative at Arcot, thereby putting off the tribute payment.

A further variable in the fiscal politics of Mysore is the presence of the Marathas; and some clans, such as the Ghorpades, make it a regular practice to raid the Mysore capital of Seringapatam (Shrirangapattana).

In this way, overlapping and at times conflicting claims are justified with reference to a Mughal center that is distant and for the most part lacks interest in these affairs.

As such, then, few if any of the states discussed above make a direct attack on Mughal legitimacy or seek to challenge Mughal claims head-on.

To the extent that such a frontal challenge (as distinct from a rebellion conducted within a shared understanding of the framework of authority) can be located in the period, it comes from the far northwest of the Mughal domain.

This repercussions from this challenge will be felt eventually by the Marathas and other groups.

The proxy war continues in India, though a state of war does not exist in Europe.

The French ally with Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jung to bring them into power in their respective states, but the British soon also intervene, siding with those states’ rivals to check the designs of Dupleix.

They counter the French by supporting Nasir Jung and Muhammad Ali Khan Walajah (son of the deposed Nawab Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan of Arcot).

The French in 1749 initially succeed in both states in defeating their opponents and placing their supporters on thrones.

Dupleix next enters into negotiations, the object of which is the subjugation of southern India.

He sends a large body of troops to the aid of the two claimants of the sovereignty of the Carnatic and the Deccan.