A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c16.s1.60

c16.s1.60

Nuniz relates that at Udayagiri Krishna Râya captured an aunt of the king of Orissa and took her prisoner to Vijayanagar. He next proceeded against Kondavîd, another very strong hill-fortress also in possession of the king of Orissa, where he met and defeated the king in person in a pitched battle, and captured the citadel after a two months' siege. He left Sâluva Timma here as a governor of the conquered provinces, and went in pursuit of his enemy northwards. Nuniz says that Sâluva Timma appointed his own brother captain of Kondavîd, but an inscription at that place gives us the name of this man as Nâdendla Gopamantri, and calls him a nephew of Timma. Kondavîd seems to have been under the kings of Orissa since A.D. 1454; its capture by Krishna Deva took place in 1515.¹ To confirm our chronicler's account of the king's northward journey, I find that there is at the town of Mêdûru, twenty-two miles south-east of Bezvâda on the Krishnâ, an inscription which states that in 1516 a battle took place there between Krishna Deva and some enemy whose name is obliterated, in which the former was victorious.