Vijayanagara: the empire of the southern Deccan

The Vijayanagara Empire was founded in 1336, traditionally by the brothers Harihara and Bukka, on the banks of the Tungabhadra river. Its capital, also called Vijayanagara and now known as Hampi, grew into one of the largest cities of its time, with temples, markets, aqueducts, and fortified walls. Foreign visitors such as the Persian ambassador Abdur Razzaq in the 1440s and the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes in the 1520s described a wealthy city full of merchants, soldiers, and temple festivals.

The empire's greatest ruler was Krishnadevaraya, who reigned from 1509 to 1529. He defeated the rulers of the Deccan sultanates and of Odisha, strengthened the administration, and was himself a scholar who wrote the Telugu poem Amuktamalyada. His court supported literature in Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, and Tamil, and his reign is remembered as the high point of Vijayanagara's power and culture. The empire's administration relied on nayakas, military chiefs who held land in return for service and who later became powerful regional rulers in their own right.

Vijayanagara's wealth came from agriculture, especially the irrigated lands of the Tungabhadra valley, and from trade in textiles, spices, and horses. Its temples, above all the Vitthala temple with its musical pillars and stone chariot at Hampi, show the scale of royal patronage. The ruins of Hampi are now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and they remain the best evidence for the city's layout, since many written records of the empire have been lost.

The empire's power ended at the Battle of Talikota in 1565, when an alliance of Deccan sultanates defeated Vijayanagara's army and sacked the capital. The empire lingered under a later dynasty, but never recovered its former strength, and its nayakas became the rulers of the southern kingdoms that followed. Vijayanagara matters as a reminder that medieval India had more than one centre of power, and that a southern empire could rival Delhi in wealth, art, and military strength.