Deccan

   The entire tract extending from the valley of the Narbada River south to the Krishna-Tungbhadra Doab is vaguely referred to in the medieval Indian historical texts as the Deccan. In the 11th cen-tury, the northern part of the Deccan was controlled by the Yadavas, blocking the Chola expansion in the northwesterly direction. Marathi and Telugu were the two dominant languages of the region. The kingdoms of the northern Deccan of the period 700-1200 were in the nature of bridge kingdoms between the north and south. In the northern Deccan, during the Turkish and Afghan rule, the influence of Islamic culture found a free field. The Delhi sultanate's failure to hold onto the Deccan led to abandoning the idea of the whole of the subcontinent being administered from one center. After 1347, the Deccan came to be controlled by the Bahmani kingdom from its cap-ital first at Gulbarga and then Bidar.