IN the course of writing the introductory chapter to his forthcoming history of the Empire of Vijayanagar, the author was led to an investigation of the actual circumstances under which that Empire came into being, and, as a consequence, the condition of South India on the eve of the Muhammadan invasions. Muhammad’s policy was conquest and extension of his empire, and was thus opposed to that of Alau-d-din. Muhammad’s empire was, it is pointed out, the largest that the Muhammadan empire ever reached in India and carried in it the seed of dismemberment. An attempt is made to arrange the chronology of Muhammad’sreign on rational lines on the basis of the History of the Sultanate of Madura founded in his reign.