Question

How did the Vijayanagar empire come into existence? What do you know about its most important ruler?

Answer 1

The Vijayanagar Empire came into existence in 1336 AD when two brothers, Harihara I and Bukka I, founded a new kingdom at Vijayanagar (the site around present-day Hampi) after the collapse and chaos caused by the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate and the destruction of smaller polities such as the Kampili kingdom by Muhammad bin Tughlaq; the new state gradually consolidated surrounding territories, adopted Vijayanagar as its capital, and over two centuries was ruled by four dynasties (Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva and Aravidu), building a strong, largely centralized administration divided into provinces and a prosperous agrarian and trade-based economy that maintained maritime links (including with the Portuguese) and issued its own coinage.

Krishnadeva Raya (reigned AD 1509–1529) of the Tuluva dynasty as the empire’s most important and celebrated ruler: he expanded and consolidated Vijayanagar’s power across peninsular India by defeating neighbouring sultanates and regional rivals, earned honorifics such as Mooru Rayara Ganda (“king of three kings”), promoted trade (notably with Portuguese merchants, from whom he obtained firearms), and presided over a remarkable florescence of art, architecture and literature his court attracted poets and scholars and his reign is often described as a golden age of Telugu literature while developing Hampi into a grand administrative and religious centre devoted to temples such as those dedicated to Tirupati; his death in 1529 preceded the gradual weakening of central authority and, later, the combined pressures from rival Deccan states that led to the sack of the capital and loss of Vijayanagar’s former glory.