Vijayanagara recovery of Raichur and Mudgal

01The doab again

The rich black-soil land between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra had been fought over by Vijayanagara and the Bahmani sultans and their heirs for two hundred years. Krishnadevaraya took Raichur in 1520, but Bijapur won it back in the confusion after his death. Rama Raya’s policy was to ally with one sultan against another. In 1552 he joined Hussain Nizam Shah, who wanted Sholapur and Gulbarga, against Ibrahim Adil Shah.

02Two forts taken

While the Ahmednagar army pressed Bijapur from the north, Rama Raya sent his brother Venkatadri with a Vijayanagara army into the doab. Firishta records that Raichur and Mudgal were both taken. Bijapur could not fight on two fronts. The gain did not last long, as alliances among the sultanates shifted every few years, but it showed how far Rama Raya could bend the Deccan to Vijayanagara’s purposes in the years before Talikota.

Dynasty · 1336–1646 CEVijayanagara Empire (Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva, Aravidu)Founded in 1336 on the Tungabhadra by the brothers Harihara and Bukka, Vijayanagara held the south for Sanatan Dharma for more than two centuries. Four dynasties ruled it; its city at Hampi was among the largest in the world before its fall in 1565.Read →