A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c17.44

c17.44

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.