A History of India, Third Edition

RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND MILITARY FEUDALISM

appointed, Tuluva Narasa—a high nayaka officer of the realm—did not
wish to relinquish his power. The Saluva princes were murdered and
Narasa’s son, Narasimha, usurped the throne. This epoch of the usurpers
was a period of constant crisis for Vijayanagar. The empire survived only
because its enemies were also in trouble: the Bahmani sultanate
disintegrated and the power of the Gajapati was waning.

Vijayanagar’s glory and doom

Krishnadeva Raya (1509–29), Narasa’s younger son and the greatest ruler
of the Tuluva dynasty, put an end to this crisis and once more restored
Vijayanagar to its great glory. He proved to be both a great warrior and an
astute politician. In the first year of his reign Muhammad Shah Bahmani
pounced upon him with a mighty army of all the Deccan sultans.
Krishnadeva won the battle and reinstated his wounded enemy, thus
keeping the rivalry of the Deccan sultans alive. For this shrewd move he
earned the strange title of ‘Master of the Foundation of the Sultanate’
(yavana-rajya-sthapana-acarya). Krishnadeva then tried to regain control
over coastal Andhra and is supposed to have captured even Cuttack, the
capital of Orissa. The vanquished Gajapati gave his daughter to
Krishnadeva in marriage and thus retained coastal Andhra. This secured a
permanent peace as long as Krishnadeva was alive; it could not, however,
save Orissa from its northern enemies.
In addition to his great successes as warrior and administrator, Krishnadeva
is also remembered as a great builder. Almost all the big temples of Southern
India (e.g. Chidambaram) have some temple towers which were erected in
Krishnadeva’s time. He was also a great patron of Telugu literature and
composed poems himself. He was praised as ‘Andhra Bhoja’ because he could
rival the great eleventh-century Paramara king, Bhoja, who had been one of
the greatest patrons of literature in Indian history.
After Krishnadeva’s death the internal struggles which had earlier
engulfed Vijayanagar emerged once more. His successors—Achyutadeva
Raya (1529–42) and Sadashiva (1543–5) were weak rulers who lived
under the shadow of Krishnadeva’s ambitious son-in-law, Rama Raya,
who acted as a regent but was the de facto ruler of the empire. The sultans
of the Deccan, especially the sultan of Bijapur, were often involved in the
internal intrigues of Vijayanagar. During Sadashiva’s reign Vijayanagar
also clashed for the first time with the Portuguese. They had destroyed
Hindu temples and this led to encounters near Goa and St Thome
(Madras), but a peace treaty was signed and Vijayanagar continued to
enjoy the vital supply of war horses which the Portuguese imported into
Goa from the Gulf region.
While the conflict with the Portuguese remained an episode, the struggle
with the Deccan sultans became more and more virulent. For some time