Mujahid Shah’s war against Vijayanagara

01The campaign

Firishta says that Mujahid Shah, soon after his accession, demanded that Bukka give up all the land between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra. Bukka refused and claimed the land to the Krishna as his own. Mujahid invaded, and Bukka, avoiding a pitched battle, withdrew into the forested hills of the Sandur region. The sultan pursued him for months, then turned on the capital. His attack on the city’s outer defences failed, and a siege of Adoni was given up.

02A sultan murdered

On the way back to Gulbarga in 1378, Mujahid Shah was killed in his tent by his cousin Daud Khan, who seized the throne and was himself murdered within weeks. The war had gained the Bahmanis nothing. Bukka I died the next year, having held the line of the Tungabhadra and seen his capital resist its first great siege; his son Harihara II went on to extend Vijayanagara rule over most of the south.

Place · Founded 1336 by Harihara I and Bukka Raya; sacked 1565Hampi (Vijayanagara)Vijayanagara, the City of Victory, capital of the empire that held the south for over two centuries. After the defeat at Talikota in January 1565 it was plundered for months and never lived again.Read →