458 years ago, on 26th January 1565 CE,+++(Isn’t it 23rd??)+++ Battle of Talikota was lost by the Vijayanagar army under Aliya Rama Raya. We shall look back on the last decades of the great city which was destroyed by barbarians after this defeat.
Emperor Achyuta Deva Raya died in 1542CE. His son, a minor, became the emperor with his uncle Salakaraju Chinna Tirumala as regent. Regent was not content with his position. He usurped the throne by killing his sister and her son, the emperor. Salakaraju killed the younger brother of Achyuta as well as his entire family. Only one young boy, Sadashiva Raya, escaped this massacre as he was at Gutti with Aliya Rama Raya (son-in-law of Krishna Deva Raya) and the widows of Krishna Deva Raya. Rama Raya and his mothers-in-law were aghast with this barbarity of Salakaraju. Many nobles also opposed the tyrant usurper. Salakaraju invited Bijapur Sultan and declared the empire as vassal of the Sultan. He made the Sultan sit on the throne of the Empire.
Rama Raya understood the gravity of the situation. He could not afford to fight the combined armies of Salakaraju and the Sultan. Hence, he wrote a letter of subservience to Salakaraju and offered to pay his respects on the departure of the sultan The usurper believed the note. He paid lakhs of gold coins to the Sultan as a tribute and sent him back. Rama Raya along with his brothers gathered their forces and marched to the capital. Salakaraju, on learning of this, sent his own army to intercept. The usurper’s army was vanquished by Rama Raya with a great portion of the royal army defecting to Rama Raya who had raised his banners in the name of Sadashiva Raya, the rightful emperor. Rama Raya rushed to take the capital.
Salakaraju, now sure of his defeat, destroyed the jewels of the treasury by grinding them in millstones and even destroyed the existing cavalry horses and elephants within the capital in order to spite the victorious Rama Raya, who began his rule as regent. The usurper thus destroyed the wealth and military power of the capital. When Rama Raya’s army had entered the royal enclosure, it is said that Salakaraju committed suicide. The fall of the Empire was thus averted by Rama Raya in 1542-43.
But Rama Raya was faced with more troubles. Bijapur Sultan attacked Vijayanagar frontiers in 1543 – perhaps to re-establish the Empire as his vassal. But the Sultan was defeated by Keladi Nayaka who remained loyal to Rama Raya.
In the same year, the Portuguese governor of Goa started depredations on Canara Coast. He defeated the local ruler of Bhatkal and looted the chief port of the empire. Then he attempted to destroy and loot Tirumala Venkateswara temple and the rich temples of Kanchipuram. Rama Raya heard abt this and sent a vast army to protect Tirumala and Kanchipuram. Portuguese Governor Affonso was forced to drop his plans and retreat hastily from Pulicat. Rama Raya’s army marched further south to restore order. A Vishnu temple in Nagore of Kaveri delta was destroyed by Portuguese. Rama Raya’s general restored the temple and removed Portuguese presence from there. Rebellious Nayakas in the south were defeated and thus order was restored in the Empire.
After this, Rama Raya kept on engaging the Deccan Sultanates in battles and defeated them time and again. He did not allow any Sultanate to become too powerful. The new sultan of Bijapur had become his protégé and vassal.
In 1555 and 1558, Portuguese attacked Hindus in Mangalore setting fire to the city, destroying a temple there and enslaving several. The Portuguese at Santhome were also seemingly planning to destroy the famous Kapaleeshvara temple. Rama Raya personally invaded Santhome in 1558. His vassals, Vitthala and Keladi Nayaka invaded Goa. Santhome was captured and the relics of the church were taken away by Rama Raya as punishment. The viceroy of Goa was also captured alive and paraded before Rama Raya. Portuguese were made to pay 1 Lakh pagodas as indemnity. Viceroy of Goa was recalled by the Portuguese after this defeat. The victory of Vijayanagar over the Portugese was thus thoroughly complete.
This was perhaps the first time in the history of Asia that a European colonial naval power’s territories were invaded and captured by means of thoroughly defeating them. Portuguese chroniclers have glossed over this or remained silent. As a result of their abject defeat, the Portuguese remained subservient to Vijayanagar and stopped their anti-Hindu activities till the Battle of Talikota.
This act of Aliya Rama Raya was not isolated. Muslim chroniclers accuse him of having destroyed Muslim shrines and attacked Muslim population during his invasions of Ahmednagar and Golkonda. For Rama Raya, these were acts of restoring the Hindu places of worship. He was setting right the crimes committed upon Hindus by the Sultanates through restoration of Hindu places of worship which had been converted into mosques and dargahs by barbarian Sultans. His acts of aggression against the Muslims were simply correcting their misdeeds.
Deccan Sultanates used to massacre Hindu communities during raids. Rama Raya paid back in the same coin by invading their territories after these raids. In 1564, the Muslim sultanates of Deccan came together to fight against this great Kafir who had become their biggest enemy.
Rama Raya could be accused of only one mistake in his career post 1542. He had allowed Muslims to join the Vijayanagar army in large numbers.+++(5)+++ Muslims were enlisted in the armies of Vijayanagar even from the times of Devaraya in the 15th century. But their numbers were mostly in a few thousands only. Rama Raya allowed them to enlist in the army more freely. Perhaps he believed that such Muslim troops will be loyal to the Empire just as the Hindus serving the Sultans were loyal. This proved to be a very costly error.
When the Deccan Sultanates joined hands, Rama Raya and his brothers marched their army to the plains near Talikota where the two sides stood facing each other from December 1564. In the initial attacks, Rama Raya’s troops were successful which forced the Sultans to call for a truce. In the guise of a truce, they seem to have bought over the Geelani brothers – Muslim commanders of the Vijayanagar army who commanded 70-80k troops each.
On 26th January 1565, they broke the truce and attacked the forces of Vijayanagar without any formal declaration. The Hindu army seems to have still withheld lines initially and even pushed the Sultanate army back. A soldier named Rumi in the army of Nizam Shah seems to have filled the cannons with sacks of copper coins and shot them at the Hindu infantry resulting in a devastating loss to the attackers. Through the gaps in the formation, the Muslim army entered.
Muslim chroniclers are silent about the treachery of the Muslim troops in the Vijayanagar army. But in 1567, Caesar Frederick, a Venetian traveler, mentions about the treachery of these Muslim commanders in the midst of the battle. It may be presumed that these Muslim commanders, with their Muslim regiments, turned against their own army at the time when the Sultanate army breached the first line of Vijayanagar offense.
Such a breach had occurred during the 1520 battle of Raichur as well. At that time, Krishna Deva Raya had rallied the crème of Vijayanagar cavalry against the Muslim forces and gained a glorious victory. Had the cavalry of Vijayanagar remained in order, such a victory would have been won here as well. But in Talikota, the treachery of Muslim cavalry regiments led to complete confusion.
Rama Raya was caught alive and beheaded by Nizam Shah. His head was raised on a spear for the Vijayanagar troops to see. In fear, the army disbanded. Tirumala Raya escaped alive from the battle field. He had to abandon the capital since he did not have enough forces to protect it. The barbarians of Deccan sultanate armies occupied the city for six months and destroyed it thoroughly.
The empire faced several reversals for next 2 decades with brief respites before the great Venkatapati Deva Raya became the emperor in 1585 and set things right. Under his rule, the empire rose to its zenith once again.
There is much to learn from Rama Raya’s life. While he did have personal ambitions as any medieval ruler, he kept dharma supreme and above his ambitions during his regency. He fought for Hindus and their temples even outside the borders of his Empire. He maintained peace with Gajapatis and concentrated on fighting the Sultans apart from protecting Hindus from Portuguese attacks as well. His only mistake was trusting Muslim troops and commanders when the Sultans were waging Jihad.
But later Hindu rulers repeated this error. It is as though none of the Hindu rulers learned from history. Wodeyars of Mysore and Madakari Nayaka of Chitradurga +++(how??)+++ lost their kingdoms due to the same error of judgement. Maratha forts were garrisoned with Arabs who meekly surrendered to the British.
On this day, we shall remember the glorious deeds of Rama Raya apart from his error of judgement. He was a savior of the empire in 1543. He was a saviour of Hindus and chastiser of those who attacked Dharmikas in this land of dharma. May this land be blessed with men of such mettle who shall uphold the cause of dharma while also learning from history – in order to avoid the repetition of such errors in judgement.