A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c16.27

c16.27

Ballāla III was succeeded by his son Virūpāksha Ballāla IV who held his coronation in August 1343; but this is all we know of him, for his kingdom was overrun and annexed by the newly risen kingdom of Vijayanagar. Bukka had seized Penugonda while Ballāla III was still alive, and his tragic end enabled Bukka to complete the work of conquest. He was firmly established in the vicinity of Hosapattana and Harihar in the middle of 1344, and ‘the circle of earth belonging to the Hoysala family’ had become ‘an ornament to his arm’. The conquest of Tulu-nād on the west coast followed soon after; that country had been conquered by Ballāla III and made part of his kingdom, but had regained its independence at the end of his reign. In 1345, or perhaps even earlier, it acknowledged the supremacy of Harihara whose brothers, in the decade that followed the foundation of Vijayanagar, were engaged in expanding their power over other territory and in bringing the smaller kingdoms under their suzerainty. As early as 1340, Bādami had become part of the new empire.