Battle of Talikota#Aftermath

Rama Raya, after his installation of a patrimonial state and emerging as the ruler, adopted a political strategy of benefiting from the internecine warfare among the multiple successors of the Bahmani Sultanate, and it worked well for about twenty years of his reign.{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521254847.006 |chapter=Rama Raya (1484–1565): élite mobility in a Persianized world |title=A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761 |year=2005 |pages=78–104 |isbn=9780521254847 }}{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9781315628806 |title=A History of India |year=2016 |last1=Kulke |first1=Hermann |last2=Rothermund |first2=Dietmar |isbn=9781317242130 }}{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521266932.006 |chapter=Imperial collapse and aftermath: 1542–1700 |title=The New Cambridge History of India |year=1990 |pages=109–139 |isbn=9781139055611 }}

However, after a series of aggressive efforts to maintain hold over Kalyan{{cite journal |last1=Chandra Shobhi |first1=Prithvi Datta |title=Kalyāṇa is Wrecked: The Remaking of a Medieval Capital in Popular Imagination |journal=South Asian Studies |date=2 January 2016 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=90–98 |doi=10.1080/02666030.2016.1182327 |s2cid=219697794 }}{{Efn|Kalyana was the capital of the Chalukyas. Rama Raya sought to control the territory in his bid to gain popular legitimacy by establishing himself as the true heir to Chalukya sovereignty and glory. Other examples included retrofitting of decayed Chalukya complexes and bringing back Chalukya festivals.|name=|group=}} and diplomatic dealings with the Sultanates laden with insulting gestures by the Sultanates, the four Muslim Sultanates – Hussain Nizam Shah I and Ali Adil Shah I of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur to the west, Ali Barid Shah I of Bidar in the center, and Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah Wali of Golkonda to the east – united in the wake of shrewd marital diplomacy and convened to attack Rama Raya, in late January 1565.

File:Battle of Talikota complete panorama.png

There exist multiple contemporary chronicles (literary as well as historical) documenting the war:{{cite journal |last1=Gordon |first1=Stewart |title=In the Aura of the King: Trans-Asian, Trans-Regional, and Deccani Royal Symbolism |journal=South Asian Studies |date=2 January 2016 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=42–53 |doi=10.1080/02666030.2016.1174429 |s2cid=164169912 }}

• Burhan-i Maasir by Sayyid Ali Bin Abdullah Tabataba, the court historian of Ahmadnagar Sultanate.
• Gulshan-i Ibrahimi by Ferishta, the court historian of Bijapur Sultanate.
• Taḏkerat al-molūk by Rafi-ud-Din Shirazi, another court historian of Bijapur Sultanate.
• Décadas da Ásia by official Portuguese record-keeper Diogo do Couto.
• Letters by Goa governor Dom Antão de Noronha.
• Fath-Nama-i Nizam Shah by Hasan Shauqi, a Dakhni poet.
• Tarif-i Husain Shah by Aftabi, a poet at Ahmadnagar court.

The details of the battle and immediate aftermath are often distinctly contrarian and even accounting for biases, reconstruction is difficult, if not impossible.{{cite journal |last1=Ray |first1=Aniruddha |date=2003 |title=The Rise and Fall of Vijayanagar – an Alternative Hypothesis to "Hindu Nationalism" Thesis |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |volume=64 |pages=420–433 |jstor=44145480}}{{cite book |doi=10.4159/harvard.9780674067363.c2 |chapter=1 Courtly Insults |title=Courtly Encounters |year=2012 |pages=34–102 |isbn=9780674067363 }}{{cite journal |last1=Guha |first1=Sumit |title=Rethinking the Economy of Mughal India: Lateral Perspectives |journal=Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient |date=9 July 2015 |volume=58 |issue=4 |pages=532–575 |doi=10.1163/15685209-12341382 |jstor=43919254 }}

The exact venue of clash has been variously mentioned as Talikota, Rakkasagi-Tangadigi and Bannihatti, all on the banks of river Krishna.{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|1301919684}} |last1=Shirwani |first1=H K. |title=The Site of the so-called Battle of Talikota |journal=Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society |volume=5 |issue=3|date=1 July 1957 |pages=151–157 }}{{Efn|James Campbell had reported traces of the Vijayanagara defensive fortifications along the southern bank of Krishna in these regions as late as 1884.|name=|group=}} There exists debate as to the precise dates.{{Cite book|last=Sarkar|first=Jadunath|url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.21517|title=Military History of India|date=1960|publisher=M. C. SARKAR AND SONS PRIVATE LTD. KOLKATA|pages=91}} Span-lengths vary from hours to days; descriptions of battle formations and maneuvers vary too.

Rama Raya was eventually beheaded either by Sultan Nizam Hussain himself or by someone acting on his behest despite Adil Shah, who had friendly relations with Raya, intending against. In the resultant confusion and havoc, Raya's brother Tirumala deserted with the entire army; he did try to regroup in Vijaynagara but failed and moved to the outskirts. His other brother Venkatadri was blinded and likely killed in action.

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Vijayanagara side was winning the war, state Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund in a survey of Indian history, until two Muslim generals of the Vijayanagara army switched sides.K. A. Nilakanta Sastri (1955), A History of South India, Oxford University Press, p. 267, {{ISBN|0195606868}}

File:Malik E Maidan.jpg" (Master of the Battlefield) cannon, stated to be the largest piece of cast bronze ordnance in the world,{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Bijapur |volume=3 |page=927}} was utilized by the Deccan Sultanates during the Battle of Talikota. It was provided by Ali Adil Shah I (Bijapur Sultanate)]]

The Sultanates' armies went on to plunder Vijayanagara, unopposed. Popular accounts and older scholarship describe Vijayanagara falling to ruins, in light of the widespread desecration of sacred topography; however, this view has been contested.{{cite journal |last1=Lycett |first1=Mark T. |last2=Morrison |first2=Kathleen D. |title=The 'Fall' of Vijayanagara Reconsidered: Political Destruction and Historical Construction in South Indian History |journal=Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient |date=2013 |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=433–470 |doi=10.1163/15685209-12341314 |jstor=43303558 }} Contemporary historians and archaeologists warn against conflating the state with the town as little evidence exists about any damage inflicted beyond the Royal Center; they further underline the politically strategic nature of destruction and arson, since sites associated with sovereignty, royal power, and authority were subject to more wanton means.

Nonetheless, the battle caused a political rupture for the state of Vijayanagara and permanently reconfigured Deccan politics. Patronage of monuments and temples ceased, the Vaishnava cult perished from the city of Vijayanagara due to the cessation of royal patronage, and the Royal Center was never rebuilt.{{cite journal |last1=Verghese |first1=Anila |title=Deities, cults and kings at Vijayanagara |journal=World Archaeology |date=September 2004 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=416–431 |doi=10.1080/1468936042000282726812a |s2cid=162319660 }} The Bijapur Sultanate reaped maximum gains but their alliance with the other Deccan sultanates did not last long.{{cite book |last1=Eaton |first1=Richard Maxwell |last2=Wagoner |first2=Phillip B. |title=Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600 |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-947769-2 }}{{page needed|date=November 2022}} Tirumala went on to establish the Aravidu dynasty, which held sway over fragments of the erstwhile empire and even operated out of Vijayanagara for two years, before shifting to Pengonda. But faced with succession disputes, rebellions by multiple local chieftains—primarily Telugu Nayak houses—who did not wish for the reemergence of any central authority,{{Efn|Stein notes of these independent estates to have been consolidating power since the zenith of Rama Raya's rule. He considers the entire span of Vijayanagara Empire to be a weakly-centralised polity, whose most important territories were regarded by local chiefs as independent "in every respect save that they could not claim to be fully-fledged kingdoms". Noboru Karashima disagrees with Stein's broad characterization but agrees that the final period of the Vijayanagar empire (Aravidus) was indeed marked by the growing power of the Nayakas as local feudal lords.{{cite thesis |id={{ProQuest|1040866864}} |last1=Chakravarti |first1=Ananya |year=2012 |title=The empire of apostles: Jesuits in Brazil and India, 16th–17th century }}|name=|group=}} and continuous conflicts with the Bijapur Sultanate—who might have been invited by Rama Raya's son—, it moved southwards before disintegrating in the late 1640s.{{cite book |doi=10.1093/0195136616.001.0001 |title=Precolonial India in Practice |year=2001 |last1=Talbot |first1=Cynthia |isbn=0195136616 }}

Colonial era historiography (e.g. the work of Robert Sewell and Jonathan Scott), drawing from the accounts of Firishta{{citation needed|date=December 2023}} and others{{who|date=December 2023}}, placed this battle within the context of a larger "Clash of civilizations" metanarrative. In this account, the battle pitted, on the one hand, Hindu civilization, represented by the "Rama-rajya" of Vijayanagara, against Islamic civilization on the other hand, represented by the alliance of Deccan sultanates. The result of the battle, according to this view, was the fall of the last "Hindu bastion" of South India to "Mohammed" zealotry and expansionism. In the modern post-colonial era, a number of South Indian nationalist historians (Aluru Venkata Rao, B. A. Saletore, S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, K. A. Nilakanta Sastri) have continued to endorse this view or one like it.{{refn|{{cite journal |last1=Nair |first1=Janaki |title='Memories of Underdevelopment' Language and Its Identities in Contemporary Karnataka |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=1996 |volume=31 |issue=41/42 |pages=2809–2816 |jstor=4404683 }}{{cite thesis |last1=Archambault |first1=Hannah Lord |title=Geographies of Influence: Two Afghan Military Households in 17th and 18th Century South India |date=2018 |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/17c0k41d }}{{Cite web|last=Shekhar|first=Shashank|date=25 October 2019|title=Hampi: Ruins of splendour|url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/heritage/article29604140.ece|access-date=2020-12-09|website=Frontline }}{{Cite web|last=Ahmed Sayeed|first=Vikhar|date=18 January 2019|title=Battle of Talikota: Beyond the Hindu-Muslim binary|url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/heritage/article25880107.ece|access-date=2020-12-09|website=Frontline }}}}

However, in recent decades, a number of historians have criticized or rejected this view. For example, Richard M. Eaton denies any religious motives behind the battle and describes the clash of civilizations hypothesis as emblematic of flawed Orientalist scholarship. In support of his position, Eaton cites a number of lines of evidence, including the multiple alliances of Rama Raya with various Muslim rulers at different points in time, (motivated by political rather than religious factors); the thorough perfusion of Persian Islamate culture within the Vijaynagara Kingdom, as evident from court sanction and patronage of Islamic art, architecture and culture; and the strategic alliances of Rama Raya's heirs (the Aravidus) with the heirs of the Deccan Sultans that fought at Talikota. Romila Thapar, Burton Stein, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Muzaffar Alam, and Stewart N. Gordon have concurred with this perspective on the basis of similar analyses. Additional arguments include the fact that the Muslim Berar Sultanate did not join the battle, the fact the Sultanate-alliance dissipated soon after the battle,{{refn|{{cite journal |last1=Eaton |first1=Richard M. |title=Afterword |journal=South Asian Studies |date=2 January 2016 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=126–128 |doi=10.1080/02666030.2016.1201895 |s2cid=219698039 }}{{cite journal |last1=Gordon |first1=Stewart |title=In the Aura of the King: Trans-Asian, Trans-Regional, and Deccani Royal Symbolism |journal=South Asian Studies |date=2 January 2016 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=42–53 |doi=10.1080/02666030.2016.1174429 |s2cid=164169912 }}{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139084116.008 |chapter=Hindu Militarism under Islamic Rule |title=Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia |year=2012 |pages=161–210 |isbn=9781139084116 }}{{Cite web|last=Ramachandran|first=Nandini|title=Histories that challenge the reductionist popular understanding of Islam in India|url=https://caravanmagazine.in/reviews-essays/islam-histories-challenge-understanding-india|access-date=2020-12-09|website=The Caravan }}{{cite journal |last1=Wagoner |first1=Phillip B. |title='Sultan among Hindu Kings': Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |date=1996 |volume=55 |issue=4 |pages=851–880 |doi=10.2307/2646526 |jstor=2646526 |s2cid=163090404 }}}} and the existence of harmonious Hindu-Muslim relations in the Vijayanagara Empire, which extended to the placement of Muslims in high positions in the royal court of Vijaynagara.{{refn|{{cite journal |last1=Shivarudraswamy |first1=S.N. |title=Hindu-Muslim Relations Under the Vijayanagara Empire |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |date=2005 |volume=66 |pages=394–398 |jstor=44145855 }}{{Cite book|last=Verghese|first=Anila|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004054378|title=Religious traditions at Vijayanagara, as revealed through its monuments|date=1995|publisher=Manohar : American Institute of Indian Studies|isbn=978-81-7304-086-3|series=Vijayanagara research project monograph series|location=New Delhi}}}}

The battle has been adopted into a play by Girish Karnad titled "Rakkasa Tangadi" (English title: "Crossing to Talikota"). Karnad based it on Eaton's analysis.{{Cite web|title=History vs 'Crossing to talikota' play by Girish Karnad|url=https://www.firstpost.com/living/girish-karnads-last-play-crossing-to-talikota-engrosses-but-stops-short-of-being-politically-audacious-7488841.html|access-date=2019-11-01|website=Firstpost|date=21 October 2019}}{{cite journal |last1=Guha |first1=Sumit |title=The Frontiers of Memory: What the Marathas Remembered of Vijayanagara |journal=Modern Asian Studies |date=2009 |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=269–288 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X07003307 |jstor=20488079 |s2cid=145476823 }}

• War of the League of the Indies

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Category:1565 in India

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