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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c17: Chapter XII. The Empire of Vijayanagar

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c17

Language
English

Contents

Chapter XII. The Empire of Vijayanagar

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Harihara I—Bukka I—end of the Sultanate of Madura—Harihara II—expansion—relations with Bāhmani kingdom—Virūpāksha—Bukka II—Devarāya I—Rāmachandra—Vijayarāya—Devarāya II—relations with the Reddis and the Gajapatis—Abdur Razzak—Bāhmani wars—Vijayarāya II—Mallikārjuna—weakness of the empire—Odra expansion—loyal feudatories—Virūpāksha II—Sāluva Narasimha.

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Wars of Sāluva Narasimha—Immaḍi Narasimha and Tuluva Narasa Nāyaka—Vira Narasimha.

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Revolts and wars under Vira Narasimha—Krishnadeva Rāya—his greatness and achievements—Achyuta Rāya—the coming of the Portuguese—the rise of the Nāyaks of Madura—Venkata I—Sadāśiva—Rāmarāja and his relations with the southern powers, the Portuguese and the Muslim states—Rakshasi-Tangadi—destruction of Vijayanagar.

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Tirumala—Śrīranga I—Venkata II—Revival—arrival of the Dutch and the English—civil war and confusion after death of Venkata II—Śrīranga II—Rāmadeva—Venkata III and Śrīranga III—end of the Karnataka empire.

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Political, administrative and military system of the empire.

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THE last chapter traced the rise of Vijayanagar prior to 1346 and gave some account of the joint activities of the five sons of Sangama—Harihara, Bukka and their brothers. Mention was also made of the earliest conflicts between the Bāhmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms which started from the time of the very founders of those two states. Now, in this chapter, we shall trace the subsequent history of that great empire which, by resisting the onslaughts of Islam, championed the cause of Hindu civilization and culture in the South for close upon three centuries and thus preserved the ancient tradition of the country in its polity, its learning and its arts. The history of Vijayanagar is the last glorious chapter in the history of independent Hindu South India.

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Harihara I who founded the empire also did much to shape its administrative system. Following the Kākatīya model, he organized the country into *sthalas* and *nāḍus*, and began to employ numbers of Brahmins as *karṇams* (in preference to goldsmiths and *velamas* who had held the positions before). He also reclaimed the plough large areas of land in the Ceded Districts. His reign must have come to an end shortly after 1357 as that is the last date occurring in the known inscriptions of his reign. Before he died he had already nominated Bukka, the ablest of his brothers, to succeed him; indeed this ‘prop of the throne’ became joint ruler as early as 1346, with Gutti as his capital.

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Bukka I’s reign as sole sovereign lasted for exactly twenty years to 1377. In the field of foreign affairs his most notable act was to send an embassy to China, as is recorded under the year 1374

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SOUTH INDIA IN VIJAYANAGAR TIMES

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in the annals of the Ming dynasty. At home, there were frequent, and mainly disastrous, wars against the Bāhmani sultans, Muhammad I and Mujahid, as recorded in the last chapter. The accession of Muhammad II to the throne of Gulbarga in 1378 brought a welcome lull in the perpetual hostilities, for the new sultan was essentially a man of peace.

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In importance, however, the most notable event of Bukka's reign was the overthrow of the Madura sultanate by his son, Kumāra Kampana. Kampana had ruled the southern part of the empire as viceroy from the beginning of his father's reign, and was ably assisted in this work by such famous generals as Gopana and Sāluva Mangu. Kampana first made his power felt by the Sāmbuvarāyas of North and South Arcot, and when he had reduced them to subjection he succeeded in enlisting their co-operation in his enterprise against the Muslims of Madura. The details of this campaign are not forthcoming, but an epic version of it is to be found in the exquisite Sanskrit poem *Madhurā Vijayam* (‘The Conquest of Madura’) by Kampana's wife Gangā Devī. This tells us that while sojourning at Kānchipuram after his conquest of the Sāmbuvarāya, Kampana dreamt that the goddess of the Pāndya country described the pitiful state of that land under the Muslims and gave him a sword dispatched by Agastya—the sword of Pāndyan sovereignty which the Pāndyan kings were no longer capable of wielding. The Pāndya's failure to recover Madura is the historic justification for Kampana's campaign against the Madura sultan which history places in the years from 1365 to 1370. The image of Ranganātha, which had been carried away from Śrīrangam for safety during the time of the Muslim inroads, was restored to its original place in 1371. Kampana died in 1374.

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The work begun by Harihara I was thus continued under Bukka I, and his sovereignty came to be recognized over large regions. The empire was divided into several *rājyas* ruled over by princes of the royal family or by highly favoured generals. Such were the Udayagiri *rājya* (Nellore and Cuddapah), Penugonda *rājya* (Bellary, Anantapur and parts of Northern Mysore), Mulvāyi *rājya* (parts of Mysore, Salem and South Arcot districts), Araga or Maleha *rājya* (Banavāsi, Chandragutti and Goa) and the Tulu *rājya* also called Barakūr-Mangalūru *rājya*, besides the Rājagambhira *rājya* and others in the south.

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Bukka I was followed on the throne by his son Harihara II who ruled for twenty-seven years (1377-1404) and consolidated the supremacy of Vijayanagar all over Southern India. The celebrated Sāyaṇa-ācārya, the brother of Mādhava, was his chief minister. Harihara replaced his cousins by his own sons as governors of provinces and sought thus to forestall the tendencies to disruption due to the ambitions of his more distant relatives. Thus Devarāya was made the governor of Udayagiri.

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In Telengana an important change had followed the invasion of Anapota, the Velama chieftain of Rājakonda, which had resulted in the defeat and death of Kāpaya Nāyaka sometime about 1369. Anapota was friendly to the Bāhmanis, and this alliance spelt danger to Kondavidu and Vijayanagar. Prince Bukka II, son of Harihara II, led two expeditions into Wārangal territory before the end of 1390, but failed to achieve any decisive results. Seven years later, Pangal was taken. This should have been an important gain, since it gave Bukka a forward base for future operations in Telengana; but it seems to have been lost soon after.

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Extensions of territory were achieved in other directions as well. In the north-west, the ports of Goa, Chaul and Dabhol were taken from the Muslims, as also Kharepatan; and the Krishna became the northern frontier of Vijayanagar for a time. The Reddis of Kondavidu were deprived of their possessions in Kurnool, Nellore and even parts of Guntur (1382-5); and the power of the empire in the southern country was strengthened by an expedition led by prince Virūpāksha which even reached Ceylon and laid it under tribute. These successes, particularly those in the north, were doubtless due, at least in part, to the peaceful character of Muhammad II Bāhmani and the confusion caused after his death by the mischievous activity of the ambitious Turkish slave Tughalchin.

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In 1398-9 another fierce war raged between the Vijayanagar and Bāhmani kingdoms in which Firuz pursued the army of Harihara II from the banks of the Krishna to the capital. He inflicted great slaughter on the Hindu population, and only agreed to an armistice after collecting a heavy ransom for the numerous prisoners he had taken. The treaty which both sides then signed contained such vague declarations as that the boundaries of the two kingdoms were to be the same as before the war, and that each party was to refrain from molesting the subjects of the other. Widespread famine over a great part of the Deccan added to the sufferings of the people during this period. The tribute which Harihara promised to pay annually was withheld two years later when the Sultans of Malwa and Gujarat became his allies.

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When Harihara II died in August 1404 the succession was violently disputed between his surviving sons. At first Virūpāksha succeeded in securing the throne, but was soon ousted by Bukka II who ruled for two years (1405-6). Finally, Devarāya I became king and celebrated his coronation on 5 November 1406.

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According to the Portuguese chronicler Nuniz, Bukka II and Devarāya greatly extended the city of Vijayanagar, raising fresh walls and towers, and building further lines of fortification. But, says Sewell, their ‘great work was the construction of a huge dam in the Tungabhadra river, and the formation of an aqueduct fifteen miles long from the river into the city. If this be the same channel that to the present day supplies the fields which occupy so much of the site of the old city, it is a most extraordinary work. For several miles this channel is cut out of the solid rock at the base of the hills, and is one of the most remarkable irrigation works to be seen in India.’

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Early in his reign Devarāya was at war with Firuz Shah Bāhmanī—as a result, according to Ferishta, of the Hindu monarch’s infatuation for a beautiful girl who lived in Mudgal; but another account attributes it to Firuz’s determination to wage a jihad (holy war) against the Hindu monarch. The war went badly for Firuz at first but ended in a peace humiliating to the Hindu monarch who had to surrender the strategic fort of Bankapur, which commanded an important route from Vijayanagar to the Arabian Sea, and to give one of his daughters in marriage to the sultan.

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The Reddis of Kondavidu, who were possibly in league with Firuz, took their chance to attack Udayagiri and captured territory belonging to that province from which they were not expelled until 1413.

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Anadeva, a Telugu-Choda chief of the region between the Krishna and Godāvari, was another ally of Firuz. To counteract his influence, Devarāya entered into an alliance with his brother-in-law Kātayavema, the Reddi chief of Rājamahendravarman (Rajahmundry). Fighting began in 1415 and at first went against Anadeva until Firuz came to his rescue and Kātayavema was killed. Devarāya’s forces were also beaten so that Firuz was able to maintain his suzerainty in Telengana. Devarāya retaliated by capturing Pangal, thus threatening Firuz’s line of communication; the town was then subjected to a siege lasting two years. The defection of the Velamas of Rājakonda, who joined Devarāya, weakened the Bāhmanī forces, so that when plague further reduced their strength, Devarāya won an overwhelming victory (1419). The Reddi kingdom of Rajahmundry recovered under Allāḍa, Kāṭayavema's general, who upheld the cause of his master's son Kumāragiri. Kondaviḍu, however, was partitioned between Devarāya and the Velamas of Rājakonda (1420) and suffered extinction. In all these battles and wars, Devarāya was notably assisted by his son Vīra Vijaya Rāya and his minister Lakshmīdhara who is said to have saved the king from a plot to murder him. When Devarāya died in 1422, his son Rāmachandra occupied the throne for a few months, and was then followed by his brother Vīra Vijaya Rāya. Towards the close of Devarāya's reign the Italian Nicolo Conti visited Vijayanagar and his description of the city has survived to this day.

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The duration of Vīra Vijaya Rāya's reign has been variously estimated; tentatively it may be said to have lasted for about five years (1422-6). Nuniz says he ‘did nothing worth recording’. His son, who in due course succeeded him as Devarāya II, was associated with him in the administration almost from the beginning. The traditional enmity with the Bāhmanīs continued, so it was not long before Ahmad Shah began a war against Vijaya and inflicted a defeat on his forces and great slaughter and destruction on the civil population of the country. The armies met on the banks of the Tungabhadra; Vijaya's camp was surprised in the early morning and the king hurriedly made his escape to a sugarcane plantation. He was found by the Muslim soldiers; but they mistook him for a common labourer and, when they came to know of the sultan's victory, they left him and hastened to join their friends. Ahmad Shah then overran the open country, and ‘laying aside all humanity, whenever the number of the slain amounted to twenty thousand, he halted three days, and made a festival in celebration of the bloody work. He broke down the idol temples, and destroyed the colleges of Brahmins.’ Before peace could be had, Vijaya had to pay a vast sum as arrears of tribute, and to acquiesce in the conqueror carrying many of his subjects, including several learned Brahmins, into captivity.

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Vijaya Rāya was succeeded by his son Devarāya II in about 1426. Devarāya's title gajabeṭekāra (‘Hunter of Elephants’) has been explained in two ways—as a metaphor referring to his victories over enemy kings who were strong as elephants, and more literally as indicating the monarch's addiction to the sport of hunting elephants. By about 1428 Devarāya effected the conquest and annexation of the Kondavidu country which had been in a weak and disorganized state after the death in 1420 of the intrepid Peda Komati Vema. He followed this up by invading the Gajapati kingdom of Orissa, possibly because the conquest of Kondavidu brought Devarāya into conflict with Gajapati's subordinates; but before hostilities could proceed, Allāḍa Reddy of Rajahmundry intervened and brought about peace between the combatants. Allāḍa died shortly after this and was succeeded by his sons Allaya Vema and Virabhadra who followed their father's general policy of aggrandizement at the expense of Kalinga. The accession of Kapileśvara, an energetic ruler in Kalinga, in 1435, naturally resulted in a Gajapati invasion of the kingdom of Rajahmundry. The rulers of Rajahmundry sought help from the Vijayanagar ruler connected with them by ties of political and dynastic alliance. Devarāya II responded, and his troops drove the Kalinga army back and secured a temporary respite for the kingdom of Rajahmundry until it was swallowed up by Kapileśvara after Devarāya II's death.

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Devarāya also carried his arms into Kerala, subjugating the ruler of Quilon and other chieftains. The Zamorin of Calicut, however, seems to have continued to retain his independence. Abdur Razzak, the Persian ambassador who visited South India in this reign, states that although the Zamorin was not under Devarāya's authority, he lived in great fear of him, and when he received a letter from the Vijayanagar monarch that the Persian ambassador should be sent to his court without delay he instantly carried out the order. The same writer bears testimony to the supremacy of Devarāya over the whole of South India, saying that his dominions extended from Ceylon to Gulbarga and from Bengal (Orissa) to Malabar. Nuniz asserts that Devarāya also exacted tribute from the rulers of Quilon, Ceylon, Pulicat, Pegu and Tenasserim and elsewhere.

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With the Bāhmani kingdom, however, Devarāya's relations continued to be hostile. Soon after his accession in 1436, sultan Ala-ud-din II sent his brother Muhammad against Vijayanagar to recover 'the arrears of tribute', and Devarāya had to pay a large amount. The Vijayanagar armies were so consistently defeated in their contests with Bāhmani forces that Devarāya held a council of his nobility to explore the causes of Muslim successes and devise means of counteracting them. As a result, Mussalmans were thenceforth eligible for service in his army and allowed the free exercise of their religion; a Koran was placed before his throne that they ‘might perform the ceremony of obeisance in his presence, without sinning against their laws’. Further, the Hindu soldiers received better training, particularly in archery. After this reorganization the army became a more efficient striking force.

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Abdur Razzak relates that while he was staying at Calicut in 1443, a brother of Devarāya II attempted to murder the king at a banquet. The plot was a failure, however, because the king excused himself on the score of health, though many nobles fell into the trap and lost their lives. Ala-ud-din Bāhmanī II evidently knew of the conspiracy, and tried to take advantage of the confusion by demanding from Devarāya the payment of ‘seven lakhs of varāhas’ (pagodas). Devarāya returned a defiant answer which he soon followed up by an invasion of the Raichur doab. The campaign began very well; Mudgal was taken, Raichur and Bankapur were besieged and the country up to Bijapur laid waste. But the Bāhmani forces soon rallied and compelled Devarāya to fall back on Mudgal. In the last of three engagements that followed, Devarāya’s elder son was killed, and his troops were driven back into the fortress of Mudgal. Two important Bāhmani generals, however, were taken prisoners until the sultan threatened a wholesale massacre of the Hindu population if they were not released; and Devarāya did not feel strong enough to refuse the Sultan’s terms.

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Devarāya was a great builder and a patron of poets. Himself a scholar and author, he is reputed to have presided with conspicuous success over many literary disputations. In one such, the Telugu poet Śrīnātha was held to surpass the poet-laureate who belonged to the celebrated Diṇḍima family, and is said to have been bathed in a shower of golden tankas.

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Devarāya’s long, and generally prosperous, reign came to an end with his death in May 1446. He was succeeded by a Vijaya Rāya II and then, very shortly after, by his own son Mallikārjuna who was crowned some time before May 1447.

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Mallikārjuna was weak and incompetent so that, from his accession, there began a period of dissension, decline and confusion until the strength of the empire was restored, over forty years later, by the martial ability and statesmanship of Sāluva Narasimha.

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The interval is marked by much agitation, discontent, and opposition to the members of the old royal family, several of whom met with violent deaths. At the start of his reign, the Velamas made a new home for themselves in Velugodu (Kurnool district) when their capital Rājakonda was seized by the Bāhmanis and the neighbouring princelings then disturbed the peace and weakened the realm—a situation of which both Ala-ud-din II and Kapileśvara Gajapati took advantage. They laid siege to Vijayanagar; but, true to its name, that city defied all their efforts to capture it and the invading armies had to retire without accomplishing much.

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Kapileśvara, however, kept up the war, capturing Rajahmundry and Kondavidu before 1454, being aided in his enterprise by the Kshatriya and Velama chieftains of Telengana. His conquests extended up to Śrīśailam and included a large part of the Kurnool district. He sent his son Hambar against Mahmud Gawan, whom he defeated, to capture Wārangal in Telengana, and later, on Humayun's death in 1461, Bidar. He then conquered Udayagiri in Nellore, and Kāñchipuram and Trichinopoly in the southern provinces of the empire of Vijayanagar (1463).

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The Oḍḍa empire reached its greatest extent at this time, its influence being felt from the Ganges to the Kaveri. But unlike the Telugu districts, which became part of the empire of Orissa for some years, the southern lands did not pass out of the control of Vijayanagar, and the Oriya invasion of the South was only a sudden raid followed by speedy withdrawal. The sovereignty of Vijayanagar was upheld by its powerful nobles ruling in almost complete independence of the emperor Mallikārjuna; such were Sāluva Gopa Timma, also known as Tirumalaideva Mahārāja who held Trichinopoly, Tanjore and Pudukkōṭṭai, and Sāluva Narasimha, equally prominent in the centre and in the eastern parts of the empire. The latter was assisted by Iśvara, an able soldier of Tuluva extraction. Mallikārjuna died some time between June and October 1465.

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He left behind an infant son, Rājaśekhara, but the throne was occupied by his cousin Virūpāksha II. Virūpāksha was the son of Pratāpadevarāya, a younger brother of Devarāya II, and had been ruler of Penugonda for several years before he assumed the imperial crown. Nuniz records that ‘he was given over to vice, caring for nothing but women, and to fuddle himself with drink.’ It is not surprising, therefore, that large tracts of land were lost to the Muslims including Goa, Chaul and Dabhol. The authority of the central government continued to decline, and total disruption was, once again, only prevented by the initiative of powerful provincial governors. Most prominent among these was Sāluva Narasimha, ruler of Chandragiri rājya, whose inscriptions begin as early as 1456. His dominions must have suffered during the Oḍḍa invasion of 1463, and he now began a war against the Gajapati and captured Udayagiri after a siege (1470). He suppressed a rebellion in the Tamil districts and, taking advantage of the civil war in Orissa that followed Kapileśvara's death, he expelled the Oriyas from the eastern districts of the empire and made himself master of all the territory up to the Godāvari. Kondavīdu and Masulipatam fell into his hands before 1477. It seems probable that Narasimha helped Purushottama Gajapati to regain the throne of Orissa from which he had been expelled by Hambar with the aid of the Bāhmani sultan Muhammad III. Narasimha and Purushottama had to face the hostility of that sultan, and the war that followed, in 1478-81, has been described in the last chapter. The Tuluva general Iśvara particularly distinguished himself by recapturing much of the booty which the sultan had gathered by his daring raid on Kāñchipuram.

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Virūpāksha II continued to rule till the middle of 1485 when he was murdered by his eldest son. The parricide, however, declined the throne and had his younger brother, Padearao (Praudha-devarāya), crowned king. The first act of the new king, however, was to procure the assassination of the brother to whom he owed the throne, and then to plunge into debauchery and neglect the affairs of state. Sāluva Narasimha saw that the only way to save the kingdom was to put an end to the old dynasty and to assume the royal title himself. He therefore commanded his general Narasa Nāyaka to proceed against Vijayanagar and capture the city. ‘Nuniz gives us a graphic account of the last scenes; how Narasimha's captain arrived at the city gates and found them undefended; how he penetrated the palace and found no one to oppose him; how he even went as far as the harem “slaying some of the women”; and how at last the craven king fled.’ Thereupon Narasimha was ‘raised to be king’ (1486) and the kingdom came to be called after him. There can be no doubt that by this act of ‘usurpation’ Narasimha and his supporters saved the empire from disruption. All the same, there was much opposition to Narasimha's elevation and he had to spend time and energy in fighting and subduing recalcitrant chieftains like the Sambetas of Peranipādu (Cuddapah district), the *pālayagars* of Ummattur near Mysore, and others. He certainly overcame his internal troubles but they greatly weakened his capacity to resist his foreign enemies. For instance, when Purushottama Gajapati took advantage of the weakness of the Bāhmani kingdom after the death of Muhammad III and conquered all the eastern coastal country south of Orissa up to the Gundlakamma river in the Nellore district by about 1489 and even advanced to Udayagiri and laid siege to it; Narasimha's attempt to raise the siege proved disastrous. Defeated in battle and taken prisoner, he only secured his release by agreeing to surrender the fort and the surrounding country.

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The loss of the western ports in the reign of Virūpāksha II had dislocated the horse trade of the Arabs on which the Vijayanagar army depended for its cavalry. Narasimha, however, revived the trade by conquering the Tulu country and manning the ports of Honavar, Bhaṭṭakkula (Bhatkal), Bākanūr and Mangalore. ‘He caused horses to be brought from Ormuz and Aden into his kingdom, and thereby gave profit to the merchants, paying them for the horses just as they had asked’ (Nuniz). He also took steps to strengthen the efficiency and the martial spirit of his troops.

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He did not long survive his defeat at Udayagiri, however, and died in 1491. He left behind two young sons whom he commended to the care of his loyal general Narasa Nāyaka, the son of Tuluva Īśvara. Narasa at first made the elder prince Timmabhūpa king, but Tymmarasa, a rival of Narasa Nāyaka, had him murdered. The crown then descended to the younger prince, Immaḍi Narasimha (1491); but Narasa Nāyaka retained all real power in his hands as regent, and even assumed the royal style along with his Sāluva titles. Friction thus naturally arose between him and the king which was increased when Immaḍi Narasimha refused to punish Tymmarasa, the murderer of his elder brother, as Narasa Nāyaka wanted, but received him into favour. The breach between them reached such a pass that Narasa Nāyaka marched with his troops from Penugonda to lay siege to Vijayanagar (1492), and, as the price of peace with the regent, Immaḍi Narasimha had to abandon Tymmarasa who was punished with death. The king was now removed to Penugonda where he was kept under close surveillance. It was indeed a second usurpation, which necessarily led to a crop of fresh internal troubles which hampered Narasa Nāyaka throughout the twelve or thirteen years he was the virtual ruler of the kingdom.

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At his death, Sāluva Narasimha had besought Narasa Nāyaka to capture the forts of Raichur and Udayagiri, which had rebelled against him but ‘which he could not subdue because time failed him’. In 1492-3 Quasim Barid, the Bāhmani minister, offered Narasa Nāyaka the forts of Raichur and Mudgal in return for an attack on Yusuf Adil Khan of Bijapur, now an independent monarch. Narasa accepted the terms and sent into the Raichur doab an army which ‘having crossed the river Tungabhadra, laid waste the country as far as Mudgal and Raichur’ (Ferishta). Adil Khan was in no position to resist the invader immediately as he had also to contend with other enemies whom Quasim Barid had set up against him at the same time. As soon as he had succeeded in repelling them, and found himself free to attempt the recovery of Raichur, Narasa Nāyaka had to defend his recent conquests. Yusuf Adil Khan met with little success, however; he was defeated and forced to seek refuge in the fortress of Manvi, north of the Tungabhadra in the neighbourhood of Adoni. He then pretended submission and invited Narasa to a peace conference where the Bijapur ruler treacherously attacked him and his followers and put seventy persons of rank to death. The Hindu army fled and gave Adil Khan the victory; but the doab continued to remain part of the Vijayanagar empire till 1502 when, as the result of a jihad undertaken by the Bāhmani nobles at the instance of Mahmud II, it passed into the hands of Yusuf Adil Shah along with the fortresses of Raichur and Mudgal.

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In the south there had been no effective assertion of the authority of the empire after the raid of Kapileśvara Gajapati in 1463-4. Sāluva Narasimha had been too busy nearer home, and it is doubtful if his authority was acknowledged south of the Kaveri. About 1496, or perhaps a little earlier, Narasa Nāyaka marched south, controlled the tyrannical oppression of officials like Kōnētirāja, Governor of Trichinopoly and Tanjore, against whom the Vaishnavas of Śrīrangam had many complaints, and subjugated the whole land up to Cape Comorin, compelling the local Chola and Chera rulers, and Mānabhūsha of Madura, to acknowledge the suzerainty of Vijayanagar. He also attacked Śrīrangapattana (Seringapatam) after throwing a bridge across the Kaveri, and its Heuṇa chieftain Nanjarāja had to submit. Further conquests on the west coast and a march to Gokarna (1497) closed this extensive and successful campaign.

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Narasa Nāyaka again came into conflict with the Gajapati king towards the close of his rule. Purushottama died in 1496 after a reign of thirty years and was succeeded by his son Prātāparudra. He attacked Vijayanagar territory with a view to conquering the South (c. 1499). Narasa was quite equal to holding his own and the campaign ended without any marked gains to either side, and the boundary of the Gajapati kingdom continued to be to the south of the Krishna river.

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When Narasa Nāyaka died in 1503, he could truthfully claim to have continued the work of his master Sāluva Narasimha and to have imparted fresh strength to the empire. He had established its authority effectively over the whole of its extensive dominions and had reorganized the army. Indeed he may be said to have laid the foundations on which his talented son, Krishnadeva Rāya, built the glorious age that followed.

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Immediately after his death, however, his place as regent was taken by his eldest son Immaḍi Narasa Nāyaka, better known as Vira Narasimha. The lawful sovereign, Immaḍi Narasimha, continued to be kept under tutelage, though he must in fact have been old enough to look after affairs. He was finally assassinated early in 1505, and was shortly afterwards succeeded by Vira Narasimha, who thus inaugurated the third, or the Tuluva dynasty of the Vijayanagar kingdom. Nuniz notes that after Narasa’s death ‘the whole land revolted under its captains’, and the murder of the king and the following usurpation could not have made the position of Vira Narasimha any the easier. His six-year reign was almost wholly spent in fighting and success did not always attend him. Yusuf Adil Khan again sought to extend his dominion beyond the Tungabhadra which he crossed to lay siege to Kurnool. Rāmarāja of the Aravīḍu family and his son Timma stood by Vira Narasimha, forced Adil Khan to retire and, by pursuing the retreating army, inflicted a defeat upon it. They expelled the treacherous captain of Adoni, which they occupied and later received, along with the fortress of Kurnool, as fiefs from their grateful emperor.

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Meantime, the Heuṇa chiefs of Ummattur and Śrīrangapattana had set up the standard of revolt, and Vira Narasimha left his half-brother Krishnarāya in charge of the capital while he marched to the south to lay siege to Ummattur. Failing to take the place after three months, he raised the siege and proceeded to attack Śrīrangapattana but with no better results. Some minor successes, however, attended him in the Tulu country. He also entered into friendly relations with the Portuguese who were just establishing themselves on the west coast, and sent an embassy to Almeida at Cannanore with a view to the better training of his armed forces and the procuring of horses for his cavalry. When Almeida wanted to build a fortress at Bhatkal, however, he sent him no answer. He tried to make his people more warlike by encouraging his nobles to settle their disputes by duelling, and he rewarded skill in swordsmanship by presenting the winners with beautiful girls.

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Vira Narasimha also tried to recover Goa. The Italian traveller Varthema recorded that the Muslim governor of that place was at war with the king of Vijayanagar (1506); but the result of the campaign is not known. He was concerting measures to renew his attack on Ummattur when he died in 1509. Munificent gifts to all the important shrines of South India, such as Rāmeśvaram, Śrīrangam, Kumbakonam, Chidambaram, Śrīśailam, Kāñchipuram, Kālahasti, Mahānandi and Gokarna, are recorded in his name in the inscriptions of his time. Nuniz records that, while on his death-bed, he sent for his minister Sāluva Timma and ordered him to put out the eyes of Krishnadeva Rāya in order to secure the throne for his eight-year-old son, and that the minister satisfied the dying king by producing before him the eyes of a she-goat. There is, however, no evidence that the relations between the two half-brothers were anything but friendly, and indigenous tradition avers that Vira Narasimha himself chose Krishnadeva Rāya for the succession.

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The earliest inscription of Krishnadeva is dated 26 July 1509. His coronation was celebrated about a fortnight later on the birthday of Śrī Krishna, to convey the suggestion that the king was an incarnation of the Lord. The reign of Krishnadeva Rāya was ‘the period of Vijayanagar’s greatest success, when its armies were everywhere victorious, and the city was most prosperous’. Krishnadeva was between twenty and twenty-five years of age at his accession. Paes, who saw him about ten years later, said: ‘The king is of medium height and of fair complexion and good figure, rather fat than thin; he has on his face signs of smallpox. He is the most feared and perfect king that could possibly be, cheerful of disposition and very merry; he is one that seeks to honour foreigners, and receives them kindly, asking about all their affairs whatever their condition may be. He is a great ruler and a man of much justice, but subject to sudden fits of rage’. Krishnadeva kept up his bodily strength by hard physical exercise, he was a fine rider and his noble presence made a pleasant impression on all who came into contact with him. He often led his armies in person and exhibited great steadfastness and courage in the face of danger. He had great care for the welfare of the rank and file of the forces, and visited the wounded after each engagement and arranged for their proper care. He was loved and respected by all and was, says Paes, ‘gallant and perfect in all things’.

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At the time of Krishnadeva's succession, however, the condition of the empire was by no means reassuring. The rebel chieftain of Ummattur was contesting the lordship of the best part of the Mysore country; the Gajapatis of Orissa were in occupation of the north-eastern districts and Pratāparudra was openly hostile and aggressive; and though the Bāhmani kingdom had virtually split up into five separate states, still the Muslim pressure from the north, especially from Bijapur, continued unabated in its strength. There was also the newly-risen power of the Portuguese to contend with—a power which was rapidly establishing control over the routes and the maritime trade of the west coast and seeking profitable political contacts with ‘the country powers’. Nevertheless, within ten short years Krishnadeva succeeded in firmly establishing the authority of Vijayanagar all over the country; there was no thought of revolt and no great discontent anywhere within his vast realm, and the Portuguese became his friends.

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His first task was to repulse the Bāhmani forces which invaded his territory in pursuit of the policy of annual jihad resolved upon by Mahmud II in 1501. As usual, prominent Bāhmani nobles assembled in Bidar and started with the Sultan Mahmud II on their annual raid into the Rāya's kingdom (1509); but they soon discovered that they were no longer free to plunder and ravage. The progress of the Muslim armies was checked at the unidentified town of Diwani where they were decisively defeated in the battle that followed. The sultan himself was thrown off his horse and sustained serious injuries from which he recovered only slowly, whereupon his nobles ‘folded up the carpet of contention and war’, and returned to Bidar. Krishnadeva pursued the retiring armies, particularly that of Yusuf Adil Khan, who turned round to oppose him near Kovilkonda and lost his life in the battle that followed. The citadel of Kovilkonda became Krishnadeva's before he returned to his capital.

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At the start of this war, the Portuguese governor, Albuquerque, sent an agent to offer aid to Krishnadeva in return for Vijayanagar support against the Zamorin of Calicut; he also promised to supply Arab and Persian horses only to Vijayanagar, and not to send any to Bijapur. Eager as Krishnadeva was to secure a monopoly in the horse trade, he did not immediately accept the offer. The second Portuguese embassy to Krishnadeva renewed Almeida's request to erect a fort at Bhatkal and gained its object. This was after Albuquerque had attacked and captured Goa at the end of 1510—the result of many months' fighting during which the town changed hands several times between the Portuguese and Bijapur troops.

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After this preliminary canter against his foes, Krishnadeva spent some time in his capital reorganizing his army and converting the motley feudal levies into an effective fighting force. He then invaded the Raichur doab and took the Raichur fort, finding his opportunity in the differences that had arisen between Bijapur and the Bāhmani sultan. Yusuf Adil Khan had been succeeded by his young son Ismail Adil Shah as nominal ruler in Bijapur, but Kamal Khan was all powerful and had his own designs on the throne; Kamal Khan also knew that Krishnadeva was friendly with the Portuguese, and so the opposition from Bijapur to Krishna's invasion on this occasion was very feeble. Kamal Khan was assassinated in May 1511 by a hireling employed by Ismail's mother, which led to fresh troubles for Bijapur from Persian and Khurasani nobles who were the friends of the murdered regent. Krishnadeva, however, was entirely free to pursue his designs, so that after the capture of Raichur he marched on Gulbarga, defeated Amir Barid, the minister and gaoler of Mahmud II, and took the city. From there he marched on Bidar, captured it after a short siege, released Mahmud II and assumed the title ‘establisher of the Yavana (Muslim) kingdom’.

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At the same time, Krishnadeva was also fighting his other enemies: the rebellious chieftain of Ummattur and the Gajapati ruler of Orissa. The war against Gangarāya of Ummattur who had been in revolt since the last years of Vira Narasimha's reign was undertaken soon after the repulse of the Bāhmani invasion, and may be said to have lasted from August 1510 to the end of 1512. It began with an attack on Penugonda, which had passed into the hands of the rebel; the capture of this strong fortress was followed by attacks on Ummattur and Śivanasamudram (the headquarters of Gangarāya). The latter took over a year to reduce; Gangarāya fled and was drowned in the Kaveri, and his seat was razed to the ground. The conquered territory became a new province with Śrīrangapattana as its capital; Sāluva Govindarāya was appointed its first governor, while the local administration was entrusted to three local chieftains, the famous Kempe Gauda of Bangalūru (Bangalore) being one of them.

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A third front was opened against the Orissa ruler, who had been in occupation of the coastal districts in the east from the days of Sāluva Narasimha, soon after the king's accession. It was only pressed with vigour, however, after the close of the campaign against Gangarāya. An army was then sent to lay siege to Udayagiri in 1513, and soon Krishnadeva himself joined it and conducted the operation. The fort was taken after the siege had lasted for a year and a half during which Krishnadeva had many new paths cut up the rocky hills to enable his troops to reach the walls of the inaccessible citadel.

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On his way back to his own capital Krishna and his queens Tirumala Devi and Chinna Devi visited Tirupati and gave thanks to Venkateśvara (July 1514). His religious orthodoxy was also shown by the capture from Udayagiri and re-erection in Vijayanagar of a fine image of Bālakrishna. The sage Vyāsarāya composed songs celebrating the occasion.

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Pratāparudra's attempt to raise the siege of Udayagiri resulted in defeat and the pursuit of the retiring forces up to Kondavidu. To the Vijayanagar army it was a triumphial march all the way, the smaller forts either submitting or being easily captured. Then began the siege of Kondavidu, first by Sāluva Timmarasa and later by the king. Being the chief city of the Gajapati dominions south of the Krishna river, it was strongly guarded and many chiefs of the kingdom were stationed in it. Only after many months, when many of its inmates had died of starvation, were the walls scaled and the garrison overcome. Many Oriya nobles, including a son and the wife of the Gajapati ruler, were taken captive, and the prisoners sent by road to Vijayanagar.

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Krishnadeva Rāya entrusted the administration of the district of Kondavidu to Sāluva Timma before he and his queens proceeded to Amaravati to offer worship to Amareśvara. From there he went back to the capital after visiting Śrīśailam to make magnificent gifts to Mallikārjuna.

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Soon he was on the march once more to join his army in the field, but he found time to visit the shrine of Narasimha at Ahobalam on his way to Vijayavāḍa, which was taken and made the advanced base for further operations. A few miles to the north-west was Kondapalli, a strong and well-defended fort with lofty walls. Krishnadeva laid siege to it; an army sent for its relief by Pratāparudra was met on the banks of the Krishna and thoroughly defeated. The siege was then pressed for two months longer until the fortress surrendered. The seizure of many other forts in Telengana, and the occupation of large parts of the Nalgonda and Wārangal districts then under the suzerainty of the Gajapati, speedily followed.

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This campaign effectively completed the conquest of Telengana. Krishnadeva next turned his attention to the country of Kalinga proper where Rājamahendravaram (Rajahmundry) was one of the first cities to be taken. A few feeble attempts were made to stop its progress, but the Vijayanagar army continued its triumphal march, devastating the territory of the Gajapati all along the road, up to Potnūr-Simhādri. There Krishnadeva set up a pillar of victory and then returned to his capital by way of Rajahmundry (1516). His invading and victorious army pressed on, however, and marched further into Kalinga until its capital, Cuttack, was reached. Reduced to extremity, Pratāparudra sued for peace and offered the emperor the hand of his daughter, which was accepted. Krishnadeva, indeed, was magnanimous and returned all the territory north of the Krishna.

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While Krishnadeva was busy with his Orissa campaign (which may be called one of the most brilliant military episodes in the history of sixteenth-century India) Ismail Adil Khan recaptured Raichur. Krishnadeva's campaign for its recovery (1520) is described by Nuniz. Determined to try conclusions once for all with the Adil Shah, Krishnadeva marched against him with an army consisting of about a million of men, if the camp-followers be included' and over five hundred elephants; he pitched his camp to the east of Raichur and began a regular siege of the fortress. Ismail came to its relief with strong contingents of cavalry and advanced to within nine miles of Raichur where he entrenched himself, leaving the Krishna river about five miles behind. The decisive battle was joined on the morning of 19 May 1520. It opened with a frontal attack by the Vijayanagar troops which drove the Muslims back to their trenches; but then the artillery of the Muslims came into play and wrought much havoc among the close ranks of the Hindus who fell back and were charged by the enemy. Krishnadeva, who was in command of the second line, then mounted his horse and ordered a forward movement of the remaining divisions. Their impetuous onslaught overcame and scattered the ranks of the Muslim forces who were relentlessly pursued right up to the river, and the threatened defeat was converted into brilliant victory. The Shah's camp was seized and he himself barely escaped with his life on an elephant. 'The spoil was great and the result decisive.' The sultan of Bijapur thenceforth cherished a wholesome dread of Krishnadeva Rāya and did not venture to renew the contest during his lifetime. Krishnadeva returned to Raichur and shortly afterwards recaptured it. Its fall was in large measure due to the assistance rendered by some Portuguese soldiers with Christovao de Figueiredo at their head; with their arquebuses they 'picked off the defenders from the walls' and enabled the besiegers 'to approach the lines of fortification and pull down the stones of which they were formed'. The Portuguese commander was specially honoured by the king in the next Mahānavami festival in the capital.

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This resounding success against the Adil Shah had important political results. Krishnadeva personally became haughty and made provocative demands on his defeated foe; he kept his ambassador waiting at Vijayanagar for over a month and then sent word that if the Adil Shah would come and kiss his foot in obeisance, his lands and fortresses would be restored to him. The Muslim sultans saw the danger to their position in the rising military strength of Vijayanagar and in its capacity to intefere in their affairs, which led, by and by, to more concerted action on their part against Vijayanagar. Lastly, the Portuguese on the coast gained by the result of the battle of Raichur: 'Goa rose and fell simultaneously with the rise and fall of the third Vijayanagar dynasty; and necessarily so, considering that its entire trade depended on Hindu support’.

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The machinations of one Asad Khan Lari, a wily courtier of Ismail Shah, who had been sent to Vijayanagar to conclude a treaty, led Krishnadeva into yet another campaign against Bijapur in 1523. According to Asad Khan's undertaking, the Adil Khan or his mother would meet Krishnadeva at a certain point on the northern frontier of the kingdom. As he did not find them, however, he marched on Gulbarga by way of teaching them a lesson, and razed its fortress to the ground. He also captured the fortress cities of Firuzabad and Sagar, and led his army up to Bijapur ‘which for a time he occupied and left sadly injured’. At Gulbarga he liberated the three sons of Mahmud II Bāhmanī, made the eldest of them sultan, and brought the other two with him to Vijayanagar and treated them with much consideration. But this attempt to resuscitate Bāhmanī sovereignty under Hindu patronage lacked all possibility of success and perhaps only served to irritate the more the sultans of the five succession states.

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Nuniz narrates that Krishnadeva in his own lifetime made his six year old son king and himself took up the post of minister. This must have been about 1524 when we have the inscriptions of prince Tirumalai Rāya, who was obviously made yuvarāja at the time. Nuniz also states that during the festivities of the coronation which lasted eight months, Tirumalai Rāya took ill and died, poisoned by the son of Sāluva Timma whose position as chief minister had been lowered by the elevation of the prince. When Krishnadeva Rāya came to know of it, he sent for the minister, accused him in open court of the dastardly crime, and cast him and his whole family into prison. In this, certain Portuguese at his court helped him; and when one of Timma's sons escaped, he was caught and blinded with the remaining prisoners.

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The Adil Shah now advanced again to try to retrieve his broken fortunes, but when Krishnadeva Rāya took the field against him, he retreated in haste. The king was preparing for an attack on Belgaum, then in the Adil Shah's possession, when he took seriously ill and died soon after (1529). He nominated his half-brother, Achyuta Rāya, to be his successor.

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Pre-eminent as a warrior, Krishnadeva Rāya was equally great as statesman, administrator, and patron of the arts. The grandeur of his court excited the warm admiration of many foreign visitors and their description of the great wealth of Vijayanagar, its festivals, its military strength and its heroic king make eloquent reading. All South India was under Krishnadeva Rāya's sway, and many quasi-independent chiefs—like those of Bankapur, Gersoppa, Bhatkal, and so on—were his vassals. The empire, although under his direct rule, was itself divided into a number of governorships under generals, each of whom enjoyed practical independence so long as he maintained a certain quota of horse, foot and elephants in constant readiness for action and paid his annual contribution to the central treasury. For such a system to work efficiently, the monarch had to command the universal respect of his subjects and exhibit great energy, tact and vigilance in the performance of his public duties. Krishnadeva proved himself more than equal to this task, and there was no confusion or disorder anywhere in the realm during his reign. He was a scholar and poet and the Telugu poem *Amuktamālyada* passes under his name; it contains an exposition, by the way, of the principles of political administration practised by the monarch. The illustrious Telugu poet Allasāni Peddana graced his court as Poet Laureate, and many of the foremost scholars of the time were attracted by the discriminating liberality of the emperor. ‘King Krishna Rāya was in no way less famous for his religious zeal and catholicity. He respected all sects of the Hindu religion alike, though his personal leanings were in favour of Vaishnavism. Krishna Rāya's kindness to the fallen enemy, his acts of mercy and charity towards the residents of captured cities, his great military prowess which endeared him alike to his feudatory chiefs and to his subjects, the royal reception and kindness that he invariably bestowed upon foreign embassies, his imposing personal appearance, his genial outlook and polite conversation which distinguished a pure and dignified life, his love for literature and for religion, and his solicitude for the welfare of his people, and, above all, the almost fabulous wealth that he conferred as endowments on temples and Brahmins, mark him out indeed as the greatest of the South Indian monarchs.’

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Krishnadeva Rāya was a great builder and added much to the beauty and amenities of the capital. At the beginning of his reign he built a new gōpura (tower) and repaired another in the temple of Virūpāksha. In 1513, as already mentioned, he erected the shrine of Krishnasvāmi to house worthily the image of Bālakrishna he had brought from Udayagiri. With the aid of a Portuguese engineer, whose services he borrowed from the Governor-General of Goa, he improved the irrigation of the dry lands round about Vijayanagar. He added a beautiful suburb to the capital on its southern approaches, and called it Nāgalāpūr in honour of his mother Nāgalā Devī; the new city's water supply came from the new tank which was under construction at the time Paes visited the city. The temple of Viṭṭhalasvāmi on the river bank was also embellished by Krishna Rāya; it marks the extreme limit in the 'florid magnificence' to which the Vijayanagar style advanced. Work on it continued for many years afterwards, and was perhaps only stopped when the Mussalmans destroyed the city in 1565. The enormous statue of Narasimha, hewn out of a single boulder of granite, that lay near the south-western angle of the Krishnasvāmi temple was one of the latest monuments of the reign (1528). Though much mutilated, it is still a striking object amongst the ruins of the city.

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