A History of Agriculture in India v2.c65.s12: Krishnadevaraya (A.D. 1509-1529)—Administrator, Statesman, Builder and Scholar
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c65.s12
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Krishnadevaraya (A.D. 1509-1529)—Administrator, Statesman, Builder and Scholar
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Krishnadevaraya was the greatest of the Vijayanagar kings. He brought entire South India under his rule. Within six months of his accession he had met the attack of Sultan Mahmud of Bidar and had thrown him back wounded. Yusuf ’Adil Khan, attempting to stem his advance, was defeated and killed. In A.D. 1510 he again advanced north, besieging Raichur, Gulburga and Bidar.
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With the north secure, Krishnadevaraya was able to turn south, and there he overthrew the rebels of Ummattur, whose territory was made into a new province with Sriringapattanam as its capital. Thereafter he turned against the Oriya ruler, Prataparudra, from whom he wrested Kondavidu and the lands up to the Krishna. From Bezwada he pushed westwards into Telingana, and then, in A.D. 1516-17, to beyond the Godavari. His most famous battle took place on 19 May 1520, and resulted in the recovery of the fortress of Raichur from Ismail ’Adil Shah of Bijapur.
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Local administration was entrusted to three chiefs, the most distinguished among whom was Kempa Gauda of Bangalura (Bangalore).
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Domingo Paes, a Portuguese merchant, who visited Vijayanagar in A.D. 1520, gives the following description of Krishnadevaraya. ‘This king is of medium height, and of fair complexion and good figure, rather fat than thin; he has on his face signs of small-pox. 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, and this is his title: ‘Crisnarao Macacão, king of kings, lord of the greater lords of India, lord of the three seas and of the land.’
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‘Krishna Raya’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 look 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 Brahmans, mark him out indeed as the greatest of the South Indian monarchs,³ states Krishna Sastri.
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a Abdur Razzak, Matla'u-s Sa'dain, in Elliot and Dowson, *The History of India*..., Vol. IV, pp. 105-114
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³ Krishna Sastri, Ann. Rep. A. S. India for 1908-9, p. 186