There are records of Islamic zealots intruding into South India in 1031-32 — the year of Salar Masud’s military expedition
Dargah at Thondanur in the name of Ghazi Syed Salar Masud
This tomb is not the only one of its kind bearing the name of Salar Masud; there are many in North India giving rise to an opinion that they are fabricated in the name of Salar Masud whose very existence is doubtful. But facts speak differently. These tombs house the fellow fighters of Salar Masud and were enlarged with Mausoleums by the orders of Firoz Shah Tughlaq (reign: 1351-1388), a self-proclaimed spiritual disciple of Salar Masud.
Writing on this, Anna Suvorova, a Professor of Indo-Islamic Culture, and the Head of Department of Asian Literatures in Russia says that those who could not reach Salar Masud’s tomb for the urs reached to the tombs of the fellow fighters of Masud closest to their location and conducted the urs on the same month of Rajjab. According to her, these were “scattered over a vast territory extending from Uttar Pradesh to Bengal.” The tomb of the fellow fighter left out in this list was of the one ‘martyred’ at Tondanur!
Mentioned by Buchanan as a ‘fanatical follower’ of Ghazni, this person buried in a dargah at Thondanur belonged to the army of Salar Masud. This can be substantiated on two counts.
The name on the tomb at Tondanur is the same Syed Salar Masud. This is so as per the Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department for the Year 1939. Lewis Rice also has recorded the same in his publication, “Mysore and Coorg, a Gazeteer” (p.278) published in 1876. Rice gives the death date engraved on the tomb in Hijiri calendar as 760. This is 1382 CE in the Gregorian calendar. Firoz Shah Thuglaq was in power at Delhi at that time!
The name as Salar Masud (a Ghazi too) and the mausoleum date falling within Firoz Shah Thuglaq’s reign could mean only one thing — that this person buried at Tondanur was an associate of Salar Masud, the nephew of Mahmud of Ghazni and his tomb was enlarged into a Mausoleum at the orders of Firoz Shah Thuglaq, as done for the other companions of Salar Masud. This mausoleum was treated as that of Salar Masud and urs was performed at the same time as in Bahraich where Salar Masud was buried.
The presence of the mausoleum bearing the name of Ghazi Syed Salar Masud in a faraway place in South India where the Hindu temples at Thondanur and Melukote were ransacked around the same time bears testimony to the historical accounts told in the Mirror of Masud and Firoz Shah Thuglaq’s dictates at perpetuating the name of Masud in all the tombs of his soldiers.
The second fact about the identity of the dead person in Tondanur tomb comes from the account of Mirror of Masud that states the names of Masud’s associates who spread to different locations. According to it, Salar Masud entered India in 1031 CE, with an army of 100,000 men and 50,000 horses. Exaggerated or not, this figure conveys that Salar Masud had entered India with an intention to fight and loot the wealth of the temples. He was already known to have advised his uncle to destroy the murti at Somnath.
He had gone across North India, passing through Meerat, Kannauj, Malihabad, Satrikh and Saket, subjugating all those places while his companions had taken control of Bahraich, Mahona and Varanasi. Two of his colleagues had gone to South India! Their names have been given as ‘Sulutanu-e-Salateen’ and ‘Mir Bakhtiar’ who went south to Kannur. It is also stated that Mir Bakhtiar was killed during a fight with the local army.
There is a place called Kannur in Karnataka from which Tondanur is located 240 km away. After ransacking Kannur, the two fighters with their army had gone to Thondanur and the nearby hillock of Melukote on their return journey. The temple at Melukote was destroyed and the murti taken, but in the ensuing scuffle with the ‘local army,’ Mir Bakhtiar was killed. He was buried on the banks of Tondanur Lake by Sulutanu-e-Salateen who left for north India to join Salar Masud and his army. These events must have occurred at CE 1031 or 1032. All the booty was deposited at a location in Delhi which continued to be in the grip of some appointee of Salar Masud or a general of the Ghaznavid empire.
Recovery of the looted property by Ramanujacharya
When Ramanujacharya (the founder of the Visishtadvaita philosophy) entered Thondanur in CE 1078, he found the temples in ruins and devoid of deities. In CE 1099 he discovered the main deity of Melukote lying under an anthill and the temple itself missing. Upon hearing that the processional deity was taken away by the raiders and deposited at the place of ‘Turushka’ in Delhi, he set out on a journey to Delhi. It must be mentioned here that 1099 was the year that saw a change of guard at Ghazni. Ebrahim who was in power for 40 years until he died in 1099 was known for restraint and his period saw relative calm, according to Encyclopaedia Iranica. It appears that temple loot and spoils of war were lying in Delhi during his period under the control of his commanders.
From the life history of Ramanujacharya, it is gathered that he successfully got back the looted deity from the Turushka commander without any hassle. With the tomb of the Ghazi bearing Salar Masud’s name found at Thondanur and the restoration of the looted deity of Melukote by Ramanujacharya standing as non-erasable evidences for the historicity of both Salar Masud and his associate who went southward, it goes without saying that Islamic zealots had intruded into South India in 1031-32 — the year of Salar Masud’s military expedition. This happens to be the earliest incursion in the Deccan, much against the currently held view of the first infiltration having happened in the 14th century by Malik Kafur.
The author, a PhD in astrology, is an independent researcher in Hindu epics, prehistory, Tamil Sangam literature and astro-meteorology. She has so far published six books that include the book validating the year of the Mahabharata war. Her latest book, ‘Ramanuja Itihasa: Decoding the identity of Krimikantha Chola and the Muslim invader at Melukote’ (E-book: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09ZJBYZRB), is just out. Views expressed are personal.
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