After the Bahmani campaign, Krishnadeva was for a couple of years engaged in suppressing a rebellion in southern Karnataka. This was followed by a major campaign by him to recover the eastern provinces of the kingdom lost to Gajapati, the king of Orissa, during previous regimes. This was a prolonged, five year long campaign, but it ended in total victory for Krishnadeva—he not only recovered the lost provinces but even stormed into Cuttack, Gajapati’s capital. There was however no vindictiveness in Krishnadeva’s treatment of Gajapati; rather, he concluded a generous peace treaty with him, by which he agreed to treat river Krishna as the boundary between their kingdoms, and returned to Gajapati all the lands that he (Krishnadeva) had conquered north of the river. And Gajapati in turn gave one of his daughters in marriage to Krishnadeva, to seal their alliance with a family bond.
The other major wars of Krishnadeva were against Golconda and Bijapur, independent kingdoms that had emerged out of the fragmented Bahmani Sultanate. In the war against Bijapur, the raja occupied Gulbarga, destroyed its fortifications, and placed a Bahmani prince, a son of Mahmud Shah, on the throne there as his ward, presumably in the hope of resuscitating the Bahmani dynasty under Vijayanagar patronage. He also took two of the sultan’s brothers with him to Vijayanagar, where they were provided with all princely amenities, but were treated as the raja’s dependants, symbols of his dominance over the Sultanate.
On his return to his capital from the Bijapur campaign, Krishnadeva abdicated the throne in favour of his infant son born to him in his old age, and himself carried on the administration as chief minister, presumably to ensure the eventual smooth succession of the prince. But the prince died after a few months, poisoned in a palace intrigue. Krishnadeva’s only other son was a baby at this time, just eighteen months old, so it was impossible for the raja to arrange his succession. He therefore set his half-brother Achyuta free from confinement and designated him as his successor.
KRISHNADEVA WAS A peerless warrior king and a great military strategist, who was never, even once, defeated in battle. He invariably led his army in person, and often fought in the frontline of his army, thus inspiring valour in his soldiers. He also paid scrupulous attention to the welfare of his soldiers, and after every battle he usually went around the battlefield to take care of the wounded and to offer them solace. Not surprisingly, his soldiers were fiercely loyal to him, which in part explains why he was invincible.
As in military matters, Krishnadeva was thorough in administrative matters also, and was meticulously attentive to every detail. He toured around his kingdom regularly, to ensure that its provinces remained firmly under his control and functioned efficiently. Every aspect of life in his kingdom received similar attention from him. And he took particular care to stimulate the economy of the state. Agricultural prosperity was crucial for the welfare of his kingdom, so he made a major effort to improve the irrigation system in the state by repairing the existing tanks and canals and constructing some new ones, and for this he even recruited the services of a Portuguese engineer. Krishnadeva also lightened the tax burden on the people by abolishing vexatious minor taxes, like the marriage tax, reflecting his general concern for the welfare of the people.
Krishnadeva was equally renowned for his patronage of scholars, writers and artists, and his court was adorned by a group of eight Telugu literary luminaries, known as the Ashtadiggajas. The raja himself was a distinguished poet, and had to his credit the composition of Amukta-malyada, an epic poem in Telugu on Andal—a saint poet of the Tamil Bhakti movement—and of her intense longing for union with god Vishnu. Krishnadeva was a deeply religious person, and he regularly visited temples, often accompanied by his queens, to offer worship. And it was Krishnadeva who ordered the sculpting of the gigantic statue of Narasimha—carved out of a single granite boulder—which still stands in the ruins of Vijayanagar. According to Domingo Paes, an early sixteenth century Portuguese traveller in India, the raja also built near Vijayanagar a new palace complex in honour of his favourite wife, Nagala Devi, named it Nagalapur after her, and made it his favourite residence.
There is a good amount of information, in Indian as well as foreign sources, about the reign of Krishnadeva, much more than about any other Vijayanagar king. These sources also provide vivid descriptions of the appearance and manners of the raja. ‘This king,’ writes Paes, ‘is of medium height, and of fair complexion and good figure, rather fat than thin; he has on his face smallpox marks. 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 … He is a great ruler and a man of much justice … is gallant and perfect … in all things … The king was clothed in certain white cloths embroidered with many roses in gold, and with a pateca of diamonds of very great value on his neck, and on his head he had a cap of brocade in fashion like Galician helmet, covered with a piece of fine stuff all of fine silk, and he was barefooted.’
The only fault that Paes could find in Krishnadeva was that he was ‘subject to sudden fits of rage,’ and he sometimes, though rarely, treated fallen enemies with unbecoming contempt. Thus, after his 1520 campaign, in which he captured Raichur from Adil Shah, the sultan of Bijapur, he treated the sultan’s envoy with utter disdain, and to his plea that the conquered territories might be restored to the sultan, he haughtily replied that if the sultan came and kissed his feet, he will return the lands.
Such insulting behaviour was however unusual in Krishnadeva, for he was normally mature, sober and thoughtful in all his conduct, in his private as well as public life. And there is a fair amount of data about the private life of the raja, unlike about most other kings of the age. ‘This king has twelve lawful wives, of whom there are three principal ones, the sons of each of these three being heirs of the kingdom, but not those of the others,’ reports Paes. These principal wives are in all respects provided everything equally by the raja ‘so that there may never be any discord or ill feeling between them; all of them are great friends, and each one lives by herself.’
Paes also reports on the king’s daily routine: ‘This king is accustomed every day to drink a three-quarter pint of oil of gingili (sesame) before daylight, and he anoints himself all over with the said oil; he covers his loins with a small cloth and takes in his arms great weights made of earthenware [and exercises with them], and then, taking a sword, he exercises himself with it till he has sweated out all the oil, and then he wrestles with one his wrestlers. After this labour he mounts a horse and gallops about the plain in one direction and another till dawn … Then he goes to bathe, and a Brahmin bathes him …’ After this morning exercise routine, the raja goes to a pavilion to attend to public business.
KRISHNADEVA DIED IN 1529 and was succeeded by Achyuta, his designated heir, but his succession set off family tensions, with Krishnadeva’s son-in-law, Ramaraya, proclaiming Krishnadeva’s infant son as king, and seeking to rule the kingdom in the infant’s name. This could have led to a civil war, but Achyuta reconciled Ramaraya by sharing power with him. This arrangement however did not last long, and presently, when Achyuta was away from the capital on a campaign, Ramaraya took full control of the government, and he seized and imprisoned Achyuta when he returned to the capital. This was followed by a confusing period of usurpation, counter-usurpation and provincial rebellions, which was, strange though it might seem, brought to an end by Adil Shah, the sultan of Bijapur, who arrived in Vijayanagar as an invader to take advantage of the disarray in the kingdom, but stayed on to affect reconciliation between Achyuta and Ramaraya. By this agreement Ramaraya recognised Achyuta as the king of Vijayanagar, and Achyuta in turn granted Ramaraya full autonomy in his fief. The terms of this agreement were faithfully observed by both princes, and Achyuta ruled in peace till his death in 1542. Adil Shah got a large sum of money, twelve elephants and some horses as his reward for arranging the reconciliation.
Achyuta on his death was succeeded by his minor so
n Venkata, with his maternal uncle Tirumala ruling the kingdom on his behalf, as his regent. This was followed, as usual in similar situations in Vijayanagar history, by a prolonged and confusing tussle between various contenders for power, in which Adil Shah also got repeatedly involved, as previously. In the course of this turmoil Tirumala strangled Venkata, his ward, slaughtered many members of the royal family, and ascended the throne himself. But his reign was short-lived, for presently Ramaraya advanced against him with an army. Faced with immanent deposition, Tirumala, according to Ferishta, ‘shut himself up in the palace, and, becoming mad from despair, blinded all the royal elephants and horses, also cut off their tails, so that they might be of no use to the enemy. All the diamonds, rubies, emeralds, other precious stones, and pearls, which had been collected [by the Vijayanagar rajas] in the course of many ages, he crushed to powder between heavy millstones, and scattered them on the ground. He then fixed a sword blade on a pillar in his apartment, and ran his breast upon it with such a force that it pierced through and came out at the back, thus putting an end to his existence.’
Ramaraya then raised Sadashiva, a nephew of Achyuta, to the throne, and himself ruled the state as its de facto king. He held Sadashiva under close guard, but kept up the pretence of subservience to the raja by periodically going to prostrate before him. ‘Ramaraaje now became roy of Beejanuggur without a rival,’ states Ferishta. And he then came to be known as Bade Ramaraya: Ramaraya the Great.
During Ramaraya’s de facto rule there was a substantial increase in the number of Muslim officers in high positions in Vijayanagar, in administration as well as in the army. And just as Adil Shah had previously involved himself in the internal affairs of Vijayanagar, now Ramaraya began to intervene in the tussles between the Deccan sultanates, sending his army into their territories. He also engaged in complex diplomatic manoeuvres to prevent the sultanates from uniting and threatening Vijayanagar. In the same aggressive spirit, he sent a military contingent deep into South India, to deal with the rebels there and to extend his dominance right up to Kanniyakumari, at the very tip of India, where he had his army set up a victory tower, to symbolise his absolute dominance in the peninsula. He also conducted a successful campaign to subdue the Portuguese who had, in Goa as well as in San Thome, presumed to take law into their own hands, looting temples and converting Hindus to Christianity.
These aggressive military activities of Ramaraya however constituted only one aspect of his reign. He, like several other Vijayanagar rulers, was a highly cultured man, and a zealous patron of artists and writers, and under his patronage several writers, in Telugu as well as in Sanskrit, flourished in his court. He was also a keen builder, and some of the finest temples of the Vijayanagar period were built by him. And he, though a staunch Vaishnavite himself, was, again like several other Vijayanagar kings, quite tolerant and liberal in religious matters, and treated all people fairly, irrespective of their religious and sectarian affiliation.
THE AGGRESSIVE MILITARY campaigns of Krishnadeva and Ramaraya shifted the balance of power in the peninsula in favour of Vijayanagar. While previously the rajas were invariably the losers in their wars with the sultans, now they were invariably the winners, especially after the Sultanate splintered into five independent kingdoms. This military dominance of Vijayanagar threatened the very survival of the peninsular Muslim kingdoms, and induced them finally to unite against Vijayanagar. In the ensuing battle, the battle of Talikota, Vijayanagar was decisively defeated by the sultans, never again to rise to prominence.
The specific circumstances that led to the battle are not known. Ferishta attributes it to the arrogant and insulting conduct of Ramaraya towards the Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan, and to the atrocities his troops committed in those kingdoms, desecrating or destroying mosques, butchering Muslims and molesting their women. This was the normal mode of conduct of most medieval Indian armies in enemy territories, and in any case these excesses were no different from the excesses committed by the sultanate troops in the Vijayanagar territory. Ramaraya does not seem to have had any religious motive in his military campaigns, but was only seeking to establish the political dominance of Vijayanagar in the peninsula. Similarly, the objective of the sultanates in uniting against Vijayanagar was not religious, but political, to ensure their survival as independent kingdoms, though a religious colouration was also given to the campaign by the sultans, to rouse the valour of their soldiers. The sultans, according to Ferishta, felt that the king of Vijayanagar, ‘who had bound all the rajas of the Carnatic to his yoke, required to be checked and his influence removed from the countries of Islam, in order that their people might repose in safety from the oppression of unbelievers, and their mosques and holy places no longer subject to pollution from infidels.’
In the summer of 1564 four of the five Deccan sultanates—Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar and Bidar—buried their rivalries and mutual grudges and formed a confederacy against Vijayanagar. Berar stood sullenly aloof from this league, as it was still smarting from the wounds it had received in its conflicts with its neighbouring Muslim kingdoms. The four confederates then sealed their union with marriage alliances. And in the last week of December that year the armies of the four kingdoms assembled together on the plains near Talikota, a small town in Bijapur, and then advanced to the Krishna, the river that at this time marked the northern frontier of Vijayanagar.
Ramaraya was well aware of these developments, and he too organised his forces. His army, according to one estimate of Ferishta—he gives different figures in different places in his account of the battle—consisted of 900,000 infantry, 45,000 cavalry, 2,000 elephants, and 15,000 auxiliaries. These are incredible figures, and are hard to believe, but Ramaraya certainly would have had an army that was much larger than the combined armies of the sultans. From this vast force Ramaraya detached a strong contingent and sent it to the Krishna riverbank, to prevent the enemy from crossing the river.
Confronted with this blocking deployment of the Vijayanagar army, the sultans used a ruse to cross the river. Seemingly disheartened by the impossibility of crossing the river at their chosen ford, they began to march upstream, pretending to look for another ford. Seeing this, the Vijayanagar contingent kept pace with them on the opposite bank, and this went on for three days. Then suddenly the allied army, as planned, reversed its course and quickly, within just a day, doubled back to its selected ford, and immediately sent an advance contingent across the river. This met with no resistance, as the Vijayanagar soldiers were nowhere nearby. That night the rest of the allied army also crossed the river.
The details of the ensuing battle given in various reports are partisan and contradictory. The battle, fought on 23 January 1565, a Tuesday, is usually called the battle of Talikota, though it was actually fought on a plain between two villages, Rakshasi and Tangadi, some 50 kilometres south of Talikota, and is therefore also known as the battle of Rakshasi-Tangadi. The allied forces, as Sewell describes the scene, were drawn up ‘in a long line, … each division with the standards of the twelve Imams waving in the van …’ The Ahmadnagar contingent was stationed at the centre of this deployment, and it had at its front 600 pieces of ordnance disposed in three lines, one behind the other, with the heavy artillery in front, behind it the lighter artillery, and the swivel guns in the rear. And in front of this artillery deployment were stationed 2,000 foreign archers, to conceal the guns from the enemy.
The particulars of the deployment of the Vijayanagar army is not known, but it was commanded by Ramaraya himself, though he was now a very old man—‘he was ninety-six years old, but was as brave as a man of thirty,’ according to Diogo do Couto, a sixteenth century Portuguese chronicler. The battle began with the Vijayanagar army shooting rockets at the allied army, and peppering it with fire from matchlocks and light guns. Then their cavalry charged. At that point the archers masking the Deccani artillery fell back, and the guns opened up, causing great havoc in the Vijayanagar army.
This was the decisive
movement in the battle. As the Vijayanagar army staggered under the impact of the artillery salvoes, the Deccani cavalry charged into them ferociously and scattered them in a short, swift action. Ramaraya himself was captured during the melee, and was immediately beheaded on the orders of Nizam Shah. His severed head was then mounted on a long spear and displayed to the enemy, and the sight of this is said to have so demoralised the Vijayanagar soldiers that they immediately broke up and fled.
The battle lasted only just a few hours, as in the case of most medieval Indian battles, in which the worsted army usually took to flight without attempting to regroup. Though Hindu accounts speak of a more than six-months-long war, and even of single battles lasting as long as twenty-seven days, these are evidently just self-consoling myths.
The sultans won the battle mainly because of their superior artillery (under the command of Rumi Khan, a Turk) and cavalry. The desertion of two Muslim commanders and their contingents from the Vijayanagar army during the battle was also a crucial factor in the rout of the Vijayanagar army. ‘When the armies were joined, the battle lasted but a [short] while, not the pace of four hours, because two traitorous captains [in the Vijayanagar army] … with their companies turned their faces against their king, and made such disorder in his army, that … [the soldiers in bewilderment] set themselves to flight,’ reports Caesar Frederick, an Italian traveller who was in Vijayanagar in 1567.
The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate Page 34
