Conquest of a Gujarati Princess - Deval Devi of Devagiri

Deval Devi (representation)

Deval Devi was the princess and daughter of Kanha Dada aka Karna Deva (the last sovereign of the Vaghela dynasty from Gujarat state in Indiaa. According to medieval chronicles, Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khilji invaded his kingdom in 1299, Gujarat was one of the wealthiest regions of India at that time.

Conquest of Gujarat

Alauddin's army captured Gujarat easily in a very short time. The Jain chronicler Jinaprabha Suri states that Khliji's forces routed Kanha's army at Ashapalli (present-day Ahmedabad). Karna weighed his options and his ministers advised him to flee the country and return after the departure of the invaders. Karna fled with his queen Kamala Devi and family towards south. His queen, Kamla Devi, fell into the hands of the invaders and was sent as booty to Alauddin Khalji. Allauddin fell in love with the Gujarati queen and married Kamala Devi, the first recorded marriage between a Hindu queen and a Muslim ruler.

Kamala Devi Vaghela - Khilji

Meanwhile, the Delhi army plundered the wealthy cities and temples of Gujarat, including the Anahilavada (modern Patan), Khambhat, Surat and Somnath. The expedition was launched “with a view of holy war, and not for the lust of conquest”, points out Persian historian Wassaf in his book Tarikh-i-Wassaf, adding: “They went by daily marches through the hills, from stage to stage, and when they arrived at their destination at early dawn they surrounded Kambayat (Cambay) and the idolaters were awakened from their sleepy state of carelessness and were taken by surprise, not knowing where to go, and mothers forgot their children and dropped them from their embrace.”

According to ‘The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims’ (edited by Andrew Boston), during the sack of Somnath, the Muslim army “took captive a great number of handsome boys and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 of both sexes…

Captured slaves from Gujarat

Wassaf describes the destruction of Somnath. “The Muhammadan soldiers plundered all those jewels and rapidly set themselves to demolish the idol. The surviving infidels were deeply affected with grief, and they engaged to pay a thousand pieces of gold as ransom for the idol, but they were indignantly rejected, and the idol was destroyed, and its limbs, which were anointed with ambergris and perfumed, were cut off. The fragments were conveyed to Dehli, and the entrance of the Jama Masjid was paved with them, so the people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory. ‘Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Amen,”

The supposedly tolerant Amir Khusrau writes: “So the temple of Somnath was made to bow towards the Holy Mecca, and as the temple lowered its head and jumped into the sea, you may say the building first said its prayers and then had a bath. The idols, that had fixed their abode midway to the House of Abraham (Mecca) and waylaid stragglers, were broken to pieces in pursuance of Abraham’s traditions. But one idol, the greatest of them all, was sent by the Maliks to the Imperial Court, so that the breaking of their helpless God may be demonstrated to the idol worshiping Hindus.”

Anahilavada, Gujarat

Refuge in Devagiri

Kanha Dada Vaghela took refuge in Devagiri, the capital of Yadava dynasty in Maharashtra. Its ruler was Rama Deva Rai who traced his ancestry to Lord Krishna. The Devagiri Fort was an architectural masterpiece as an impregnable fortress built about 200 meters high atop a hill. The site is located near Aurangabad of Maharashtra state of India. He gave asylum the the fleeing Vaghela king and the refugee king was granted an estate comprising a few nearby villages.

Ruins of Davagiri Fort 

Vaghela's daughter Deval Devi grew up in Devagiri and news of her beauty reached  the palace of Allauddin Khilji. Kanha Dada Vaghela's wife Kamla Devi was now married to Alauddin Khalji as his third wife. She told the sultan of how much she missed her little daughter. In 1308, ten years after mother and daughter had been separated, the Khilji sultan sent an expedition to the Deccan under his favorite eunuch general, Malik Kafur with instructions to bring Deval Devi back.

Capture of Deval Devi

Vaghela asked for assistance from the Yadavas, who agreed provided he allowed Deval’s marriage to the Yadavaa prince. A deeply agitated Kanha Dada agreed to this, and dispatched his daughter under escort to the fort of Devagiri. Bedecked as a bride, Deval Devi was seated in a palanquin and sent under armed escort towards the citadel to marry the crown prince. However, before reaching the fort, the party was waylaid by a contingent of Sultanate soldiers. Malik Kafur came upon the party quite by accident and captured the princess hiding near the Ellora caves.

The Yadavas were defeated and Raja Ramdev Rai was captured by Malik Kafur. The army of Kafur, wrought destruction upon the city of Devagiri, which was again looted and raped. Ramdev Rai was taken to Delhi and brought before Sultan Allauddin Khilji. In Delhi, he accepted to pay annual tribute to the Sultan and became his subordinate. For this cowardly act, Ramdev Rai was bestowed the title “Rai Rayan” i.e. King of Kings. The shameless Ramdev stayed in Delhi for 6 months before returning to Devagiri.

As Wife of Khijr Khan

Deval Devi was sent to Delhi, where she was reunited with the mother Kamala Devi whom she had not seen since childhood. Shortly afterwards, Alauddin's eldest son Khizr Khan (her mother's step-son) fell in love with her. His parents Alluddin Khlji and Queen Meharunissa were against their marriage. Khijr Khan and Deval Devi eloped and forced the Sultan to agree to their marriage. Their love affair was celebrated with manuscripts of ASHIQA, a poem composed by Amir Khusrow.

Deval Devi and Khijr Khan

As Wife of Mubarak Shah

Following Alauddin Khilji's death in 1316, his third son Mubarak Shah ascended the throne. Mubarak Shah came to know about a conspiracy to murder him, He put everyone involved in the conspiracy, including his brother Khizr Khan, to death. Historian Haji-ud-Dabir writes that Mubarak Shah took Deval Devi forcibly in his harem as a slave girl.and then married her forcibly, thus becoming her second husband.

Deval Devi with Mubarak Shah

As Wife of Khusro Khan

Mubarak Shah was was later murdered by his favorite lover boy, Khusro Khan one night of 1320. Ziauddin Barani, the contemporary historian, writes that Khusro Khan then married Deval Devi, thus becoming her third husband. The novel  Karan Ghelo tells us about her third marriage which was acceptable to Deval Devi, Mainly because Khusro Khan came from a background similar to her own. Born into a Rajput family, he had been captured as a young boy during a battle, brought up by Malik Shadi in Delhi as a Muslim, His good looks had earned him the favor of Sultan Mubarak Shah.

Deval Devi with Khusro Khan

Tragedy of Deval Devi and Vaghelas

However, after a reign of only five months, Khusro Khan was defeated by Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq and was put to death. Historical sources are silent about Deval Devi's fate thereafter. Her story, of a high-born Hindu Rajput princess being passed from hand to hand among a series of brutal, fratricidal Muslim invaders, is the final denouement of helplessness of Rajput rulers of India. Her memory is immortalized in  the Gujarati historical novel Karan Ghelo by Nandshankar Mehta.

The Vaghela royal family’s tragedy was complete with the demise of Kanha Dada. The Jain writer Kakka Suri, in his Nabhi-Nandana-Jinoddhara-Prabandha, says the king “fled away in all haste and having wandered about in many kingdoms died the death of a pauper”.

Devagiri was in few years renamed as Daulatabad by the eccentric Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq, who for 2 years shifted the capital from Delhi to Devagiri along with the entire population of Delhi. The last of it’s Hindu identity was now gone. Devagiri became Daulatabad.

References

1. https://gcmogre.tumblr.com/post/23549521487/the-fall-of-devagiri
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alauddin_Khalji%27s_conquest_of_Devagiri
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deval_Devi
4. http://blog.chughtaimuseum.com/?p=842
5. https://angel1900.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/empress-kamal-devi-allauddin-khiljis-rajputh-wife/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karna_(Vaghela_dynasty)
7. http://www.streeshakti.com/bookK.aspx?author=8
8. http://blog.chughtaimuseum.com/?p=842