slew the Brahman priests attached to it, and ordered a mosque to be
erected on its site. He remained nearly three years at Rajahmundry,
secured the Telingana country, expelled some refractory zamindars,
and "resolved on the conquest of Nursing Raya."

"Nursing," says Firishtah, "was a powerful raja, possessing the country
between Carnatic[157] and Telingana, extending along the sea-coast,
to Matchiliputtum,[158] and had added much of the Beejanuggur territory
to his own by conquest, with several strong forts."

This was probably the powerful chief Narasimha Raya, a relation of
the king of Vijayanagar, who, intrusted with the government of large
tracts, was rising rapidly to independence under the weak and feeble
monarch whom he finally supplanted. The Sultan went to Kondapalle,[159]
and there was told that, at a distance of ten days' journey, "was
the temple of Kunchy,[160] the walls and roof of which were plated
with gold, ornamented with precious stones;" upon receipt of which
intelligence the Sultan is said to have made a forced march thither,
taking with him only 6000 cavalry, and to have sacked the place.

The account given by the BURHAN-I MAASIR as to Muhammad Shah's
proceedings at this period is that on going to Rajahmundry he found
there Narasimha Raya "with 700,000 cursed infantry, and 500 elephants
like mountains of iron," who, in spite of all his pomp and power,
fled like a craven on the approach of the army of Islam. The Sultan
then reduced Rajahmundry, which had been held by a HINDU force --
not Muhammadan, as Firishtah declares. In November 1480[161] he
marched from Rajahmundry to Kondavid, going "towards the kingdom
of Vijayanagar." After reducing that fortress, he proceeded after
a while to Malur, which belonged to Narasimha, "who, owing to his