Talk:Turquoise Throne

Add more information

It is suggested to add more information to this page. Bsskchaitanya (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Objection to page deletion

Many secondary references have been added to the article which indicates that the Turquoise throne was indeed an object of interest and a symbol of prestige during the Bahmani sultanate reign. It is better to keep the page from deletion.Bsskchaitanya (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I am afraid these are crap sources. The very first source, Bhavaiah Choudhary, is a caste propagandist, not a historian. Then there are various other folklore writers. Only scholarly sources are accepted for history.

TrangaBellam, can you help weed out the bad sources? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Kautilya3 Hi Kautilya, I do agree with your point about Bhavaiah Choudary. I was looking for the Telugu name of the throne as it was crafted by Telugu artisans and gifted by a Telugu king (i.e. Kapaya Nayaka) to the Bahmani Sultan. Bhavaiah's book was referred to just to provide the Telugu name and nothing more. More reliable sources are from historians such as Firishta and Somasekhara Sarma, etc. It would be really great if bad references are weeded out to further improve the quality of the article. The Telugu/Telangana/Andhra history between Kakatiya and Vijayanagara empires is a bit vague. I am doing my best to add articles that cover that period. I managed to decipher an inscription in Draksharama temple that mentioned the Reddy King Kumaragiri and that was the beginning of my curiosity about Telugu history during this period. I sincerely thank for your interest in this article.Bsskchaitanya (talk) 10:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Kautilya3 I looked for some Telugu references having the name of the throne in Telugu and found this one. The main theme of this book in the Telugu language is about Kondaveedu heritage and Telugu poet Srinatha. This is the link of the book in the archive website: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.390230/2015.390230.Kondaveeti-Prabavam-Sreenaduni_djvu.txt . In page 45, there is mention of the defeat of Kapaya Nayaka and the turquoise throne is mentioned in this way ...వైఢూర్య స్థగితమగు బంగారు సింహాసనం కూడా యిచ్చాడు.... (vaiḍhūrya sthagitamagu bangārusiṃhāsanaṃ kūḍā iccāḍu, lit. a golden throne studded with turquoise was given). If you feel this reference is better than the Bhavaiah Chowdary one then I will go ahead and replace it. Have a nice day.Bsskchaitanya (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok, Srinatha is better, though he wasn't yet born when the throne was gifted. So his description is notable, but not reliable. All these descriptions should be moved to the body. As per WP:INDICSCRIPTS, these scripts are not allowed in the lead. Definitely replace Bhavaiah Choudhary, who cannot be cited anywhere on Wikipedia. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:39, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I will remove the Bhavaiah's reference and the indicscripts. However, I prefer to keep the IAST transliteration in Telugu. Thanks for inputs. If you find any other references are odd then do suggest better options. Bsskchaitanya (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Verifiability

Bsskchaitanya, you write:

But, he [Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka] was killed by a confederacy of Kondaveedu Reddy kings and Recherla chiefs in a battle at Bhimavaram in 1368 CE.

References

Can you provide a quote from the source that establishes the claim? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Kautilya3 I took that reference from the Musunuri Nayaks page. Now, I have gone through the book by M. Somasekhara Sarma, History of Reddy Kings. The information about the death of Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka at Bhimavaram around 1368 CE is mentioned on page 22. The link to the book from the www.archive.org website is given: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.32066/page/n37/mode/2up .

I have realized now that when taking a reference from the Musunuri Nayak page, I have given the wrong reference (i.e. the above-mentioned journal) instead of the correct one (the book on Reddi Kings mentioned by me in this reply). I sincerely apologise for this mistake and would like to rectify it. I thank you for rightly pointing out this issue. However, in Somasekhara's book, only mentioned the war between the Velama chiefs of Recherla and the Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka, but no reference to the Reddy king's involvement. However, I remember reading some other book about the involvement of Reddy King in the death of Kapaya. It seems the Reddies split into Kondaveedu and Rajahmundry branches and one of them fought against Kapaya Nayaka. So, I will modify the sentence removing the reddy king involvement, and also provide the correct reference by removing the incorrect one.Bsskchaitanya (talk) 10:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the citation. But the Musunuri Nayaks page says, His weakened position was exploited by the Reddis of Kondavidu and the Recherla Nayakas, the latter of whom killed him in battle at Bhimavaram in 1368. There is no mention of any "confederacy". Neither does the source mention such a thing.

The fact that the Bahmani invasioins "weakened" the Musunuri position is important, whereas you emphasize that they had "peace". The Bahmanis took away the Hyderabad heartland, which had been part of the Kakatiya kingdom for at least a century, and vast amount of tribute including the throne (pegged as a "gift"). So the Musunuri claim to Kakatiya successorhood was destroyed. This is not exactly "peace". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:36, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The treaty is very much in favour to the Bahamanis and Kapaya Nayaka seemed to have no other choice except to offer some costly gifts to "buy" peace. As you rightly pointed out, Golconda was gone due to that forced peace treaty and in due course of time even Warangal got subsumed into the Bahmani realm. Bsskchaitanya (talk) 12:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

You have to consistent with Richard Eaton, who is a renowned historian:

Crafted by Telugu artisans, the throne was framed in ebony, covered with plates of pure gold, studded with precious gems, and enameled with a turquoise hue. It had originally been built for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, probably intended as tribute during the period that the Tughluqs ruled Sultanpur/Warangal (1323–36). But the Tughluqs were driven out of Warangal before the throne could be delivered to Delhi. Ultimately, Kapaya Nayaka transferred it to Sultan Muhammad I (1358–75) as part of a treaty agreement in which the two rulers fixed their common border. It was then used by every Bahmani ruler until the last, Sultan Mahmud (1482–1518), who dismantled it for its valuable gems.

Note that Eaton believes that it was commissioned during the Tugluq rule, not by Musunuris. Kapaya Nayaka seems to have agreed to gift it to the Bahamani sultan, essentially signifying that he accepted the latter's supremacy. The Bahamanis were essentially trying to establish themselves as the Deccan Sultans to parallel the Delhi Sultans. The throne was an important part of this. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:30, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Even though you have cited these scholars, your text is not faithful to what they said. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

My intention was to highlight the fact that the throne was crafted by Telugu artisans and it was supposed to be a tributary gift to Muhammad Bin Tughluq. We cannot say if Musunuri Nayaks ordered for the crafting of the throne or not. Much of the history is vague and even Kapaya Nayaka was thought to be some non-historical person until the Vilasa grant was unearthed near Pithapuram and got deciphered by M. Somasekhara Sarma. Firishta mistook Kapaya Nayaks to be a hereditary successor to Prataparudra II which is incorrect. Coming to this article, my intention was not to depend on any single historian but gather information from multiple authors/historians. I will try to rectify it and you too if you find any inconsistencies in my writing style then you are free to rectify them :) Bsskchaitanya (talk) 12:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Khazeni's book is all about the importance of turquoise to Islam. There is no such importance in Hinduism. It is unlikely that the Musunuris rebelling against the Delhi Sultanate specially got a turquoise throne built in order to gift it to some one. Khazeni and Eaton have the correct interpretation. You can't equate the local folklorists to top historians. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

References

Regarding assurance of non-alliance with vijayanagara during the truce negocitations

Kautilya3 The sentence related to cutting of the alliance with Vijayagara by Kapaya during the truce negocitation we taken from this book, 'A Military History of Medieval India' by G. S. Sandhu. The exact words in the page 320 of that book are

"He promised to hand over a Turquoise throne (Takht-i-firoza) in his possession to them. He also gave an undertaking that he would not enter into an alliance with Vijayanagara provided the Bahmanis respected his borders."

He was a Major General in Indian Army and wrote many books related to Indian military. You can find an article about his demise in https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/maj-gen-gurcharan-singh-sandhu-pvsm-retd/articleshow/8099549.cms . I presume his book is a valid reference. Bsskchaitanya (talk) 11:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

If that is the case, then it is worse than I imagined. It looks like the rest of the paragaph is then unsourced! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Kautilya3 I didn't understood what you mean by "worse than I imagined"? Do you mean referring to his book is not considered a valid citation? Can you be more clear in your concern? Also, you can rectify or remove anything in that article that is not backed by valid citations. (I forgot to put my signature before and doing it now) Bsskchaitanya (talk) 07:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I have added a valid reference related to the death of Nagadeva. In some references, his name was referred to as Vinayaka Deva, and Kapaya Nayaka as Krishna Nayaka. Unfortunately, we have very scanty resources about these Musunuri Nayaks. (I forgot to put my signature and doing it now) Bsskchaitanya (talk) 07:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

References