The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c7.3

v1.c7.3

THE splendour of the Vijayanagara Empire that characterised the reign of the famous monarch, Krishna Deva Raya, and was happily maintained by his half-brother and successor Achyuta Raya¹, suffered a sudden, though brief, eclipse at the latter’s demise ². At this time, to quote an anonymous contemporary author, the Sovereign of Vijayanagara “ruled over numberless people, and could raise an army of a million or a million and a half soldiers; so that all the neighbouring kings and princes were his vassals, thus making him master of untold wealth. There was in his army a great deal of elephantry and cavalry; for he was the owner of more than three thousand elephants, and thirty or forty thousand of the best horses ever seen in this country, because they came from both Arabia and Persia"¹. In addition, its rivers produced gold, while diamonds and other precious stones were found in its valleys. Vijayanagara was until then the same city and the same Empire that fired the admiration of the Persian Ambassador, Abdur-Razzak some years previously, when he "saw a city exceedingly large and populous and a king of great power and dominion, whose kingdom extended from the borders of Sarandip to those of Kulbarga, and from Bengal to Malibar, a space of more than 1,000 parasangs"².