If this be correct, the reign of Deva Raya II., granting that it lasted
as stated by Nuniz for twenty-five years, ended in A.D. 1444. Now the
chronicle tells us a story of how this Deva Raya's son and successor,
"Pina Rao,"[102] was attacked by his nephew with a poisoned dagger, and
died from the effects of his wounds after a lapse of six months. Abdur
Razzak, more reliable because he was not only a contemporary but
was at Vijayanagar at the time, relates the same anecdote of Deva
Raya II. himself, making the would-be assassin the king's brother,
and definitely fixing the date beyond a shadow of a doubt. The
event occurred on some day between November 1442 and April 1443 --
the outside limits of Razzak's visit to Calicut -- during his stay
at which place he says it happened. Abdur Razzak does not mention the
king's death, and this therefore had not supervened up to the time of
the traveller leaving the capital in December 1443. On the assumption
that we need not be too particular about Nuniz's "six months," we may
conclude that the attack was made about the month of April 1443, and
that Deva Raya II. died early in 1444 A.D. There is still, however,
a difficulty, as will be noticed below, inscriptions giving us the
name of a Deva Raya as late as 1449 A.D., but it is just possible
that this was another king of the same name.

Putting together the facts given above, we find that the twenty-five
years of the reign of Deva Raya II. lay between 1419 and 1444 A.D.





CHAPTER 6