Krishnadevaraya

Krishnadevaraya ruled the Vijayanagara Empire of southern India from 1509 to 1529, its period of greatest power and cultural brilliance. A successful general who fought the sultanates of the Deccan and the Gajapati kings of Odisha, he was also a poet in his own right and a generous patron of literature in several languages. He is remembered in southern India as one of the country's greatest kings.

Krishnadevaraya was born in 1471, a son of Tuluva Narasa Nayaka and his queen Nagamamba. His father had been a commander under the Saluva kings of Vijayanagara and later took control of the state, founding the Tuluva dynasty. Krishnadevaraya came to the throne in 1509 on the death of his half-brother Viranarasimha, and relied heavily on his chief minister Timmarusu, whom he credited with securing his accession.

Vijayanagara's northern neighbours were the Bahmani sultanate and the Muslim sultanates that had broken away from it, which had long raided Vijayanagara territory. Early in his reign Krishnadevaraya defeated their forces and annexed the Raichur Doab, the land between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers. Not every campaign went his way: in 1513 he was defeated by the Sultan of Golconda at Pangal and had to retreat.

To the north-east, the Gajapati kings of Odisha held much of the eastern coast. Krishnadevaraya's armies besieged the fortress of Udayagiri from 1512, taking it after about a year, and then captured Kondaveedu, where the Gajapati king's son was taken prisoner. An invasion of Kalinga drove King Prataparudra back to his capital at Cuttack. He made peace and gave his daughter in marriage to Krishnadevaraya, who handed back the lands he had taken north of the Krishna river, making it the boundary between the two kingdoms.

Krishnadevaraya's most celebrated victory came at Raichur, which he captured from Ismail Adil Shah of Bijapur on 19 May 1520 after a hard siege. Large figures are given for the armies, and 16,000 Vijayanagara soldiers were reportedly killed; Portuguese troops with firearms took part on his side. He went on to occupy Bijapur and later razed the fortress of Gulbarga, the old Bahmani capital. He had made friendly contact with the Portuguese at Goa in 1510, obtaining guns and Arabian horses from their merchants.

Portuguese visitors such as Domingo Paes and Duarte Barbosa praised the efficiency of his government and the prosperity of his subjects. He kept a firm hand on his ministers, abolished some unpopular taxes, brought new land under cultivation and built irrigation works around the city of Vijayanagara. A devotee of Venkateshwara, he gave lavish gifts to the temple at Tirumala and rebuilt the Virupaksha temple, while supporting shrines of several Hindu traditions. When the Mughal founder Babur surveyed the rulers of India, he counted Krishnadevaraya the most powerful.

His reign is regarded as a golden age of Telugu literature. Krishnadevaraya himself wrote the Telugu poem Amuktamalyada, about the Tamil saint Andal, as well as works in Sanskrit. His court gathered eight celebrated Telugu poets, the Ashtadiggajas, among them Allasani Peddana and Tenali Ramakrishna, later a favourite figure of folk tales. He also supported writers in Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit.

In 1524 he made his son Tirumala Raya crown prince, but the boy soon died, reportedly poisoned. Suspecting Timmarusu, the king had his old minister blinded. Krishnadevaraya was preparing a campaign against Belgaum when he fell ill, and he died on 17 October 1529. He was succeeded by his brother Achyuta Deva Raya.

Our 1500 map shows the Vijayanagara Empire across southern India just before his reign, and the 1530 map shows it a year after his death.