Battle Of Talikota
Friends, you must have heard about the Vijayanagara Empire, but do you know that this huge empire was destroyed due to a war. A war which changed the history of South India. This war pushed a big empire like Vijayanagar towards decline. Friends, I am talking about the Talikota battle fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Sultans of Deccan in 1565. So in today’s video I am going to tell you about the history of Talikota war. So let’s start the video. The Vijayanagara Empire was the most prosperous and powerful empire of South India.
This empire was spread in today’s Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Maharashtra and Telangana and also in some areas of Sri Lanka. In 1336, two brothers named Harihara and Bukka founded the Vijayanagara Empire. A total of four dynasties ruled this empire from 1346 to 1646, the first of which was the Sangam dynasty which lasted from 1336 to 1485. After that comes the Saluv dynasty which ruled from 1484 to 1505 AD. Then comes the Pal dynasty which ruled from 1505 to 1570 and finally came the Vihin dynasty which ruled from 1570 to 1650.
Vijayanagara was a highly developed empire with an efficient water system, proper irrigation system, good administrative system and also spies were deployed to see that there was no corruption in the state. Vijayanagara had palaces, royal bathrooms, audience holes and houses made of stone. He had a huge army, due to which the surrounding kings were afraid to attack here first. This empire built a fort at Gingee, which is located about 80 miles south-west of Chennai in today’s Tamil Nadu state.
King Krishnadev Rai of Pala dynasty had the biggest role in the expansion of Vijayanagara. Vijayanagara also had very good foreign relations, due to which King Krishnadeva Raya is considered to be the Indian first global leader. Art, culture and music were also very famous in Vijayanagara and were greatly supported by the kings and it is said that during the reign of King Krishnadeva Raya, Vijayanagara became the largest state in South India as a military power. But after King Krishnadev Rai, Vijayanagara started declining.
It was not so easy to defeat this huge empire. For this, the five states of Deccan had to come together and attack and despite this the empire remained stable for a long time. To the north of the Vijayanagara Empire was the Bahmani Sultanate, which later broke into five major states which were divided into Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Berar, Golconda and Bidar. Friends, after the death of King Krishnadeva Raya in 1529, his younger brother Achyuta Raya succeeded him and then Achyuta Raya was educated by Venkata Raya.
After which Venkata Roy was educated in 1542. Sadashiv Rai When the rule of Raja Sadashiv Rai of Lalu dynasty started on Vijayanagar, he proved to be an unsuitable ruler and at this time all the responsibility of the state was in the hands of Raja Sadashiv Rai’s minister Ram Rai, who was everything from the minister of the state to the commander. There was something. Sadashiv Rai was a ruler in name only. Ram Rai starts interfering in the states of Deccan one by one by making treaties. No ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire had done this before.
Ram Rai first makes a treaty with Golconda and Ahmednagar against Bijapur and attacks him and shortly after this, Ram Rai makes a treaty with Bijapur and Golconda against Ahmednagar and all three states together attack Ahmednagar. In this way, Ram Rai was sometimes supporting Bijapur and sometimes Ahmednagar and making them fight among themselves and very soon these Deccan Sultans came to know about the intentions of Ram Ram Rai and this time instead of fighting among themselves, all the five Sultans fought against Vijayanagar.
Wanted to make a treaty and attack him. After which, on December 29, 1564, a contingent of the army of the Deccan Sultans attacks Vijayanagara, but here they have to face a terrible defeat. After which the Sultan comes to know that the army of Vijayanagara is very huge and they cannot be defeated easily. Then in a meeting of the Sultans they decided that if not by military force then at least by deceit.
After this, a false message was sent to Vijayanagar by the Sultans of Deccan in which they said that they will remain neutral in the entire war and will not attack at this time. Vijayanagara accepts this message as true and stops its attack. They think that the army of Deccan Sultans will not attack now but after this the army of Deccan suddenly attacks here.
However, it did not cause much damage to Vijayanagar and even before this many small attacks were carried out. Deccan Army had this advantage because the armies of five different states were fighting together, due to which they could attack five different places at the same time. The real war started here on 23 January 1565 where this confederacy was led by Sultan Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur.
Ali Adil Shah demanded the forts of Raichur and Mudgal from Ramarai but Ramarai rejected this demand and with this the combined army of Deccan Sultans moving towards Vijayanagar reached Talikota place situated between Rakshasi and Tagdi. Talikota is located in northern Karnataka, 80 kilometers south-east of Bijapur. Here, Vijayanagara’s huge army consisted of 1,00,040 thousand soldiers, 10 thousand horsemen and 100 war elephants.
The army of the Deccan Sultans had 80 thousand soldiers, 30,000 horsemen and seven dozen cannons. Initially the Deccan army seemed to be losing and Vijayanagara was winning the war. But then the Deccan Army started attacking with their guns. Due to which there was chaos in the army of Vijayanagara. Then two generals, the Geelani brothers, changed their loyalty to Vijayanagara and a large contingent of the Vijayanagara army attacked the Vijayanagara army itself.
Let me tell you that these Geelani brothers were their own Muslim generals who were fighting on behalf of Vijayanagar and the Sultans of Deccan had made a secret treaty with these Geelani brothers that if we started losing the war, then as soon as we got the signal, you would roll your dice and support us. Turn aside and attack. These Geelani brothers captured Ram Rai and beheaded the king. By doing this he joined the Deccan army. The news of Ram Rai’s death created a stir in the war, after which there was division in the army and their morale also broke.
After this, about 1 lakh soldiers of the Vijayanagara army were killed and the Vijayanagara army was decisively defeated in the battle of Talikota. Friends, there were other small reasons why Vijayanagara Empire lost in the war. The first reason for which was the war elephants of his army. Because of these elephants, the pace of the war had slowed down and if they got carried away, they could have created even bigger trouble. And one reason was the weapons of the Vijayanagara army.
While the Deccan army had weapons and cannons made of the finest metal, the Vijayanagara army, on the other hand, had weapons made of bamboo. Their spears were slightly smaller than those of the Deccan army. The Deccan army had Persian horses which were slightly faster than the Vijayanagara horses and the commanders of the Deccan Sultans were good, young and energetic. At the same time, the commanders of Vijayanagar were older than them and the biggest reason was the betrayal of the Geelani brothers.
If this betrayal had not happened, Vijayanagara would have definitely won this war. When people came to know about these necklaces of Vijayanagara, at first no one believed it. Because how did the army which had not lost any battle for the last 200 years lose now The Deccan army had already killed Ramarai and also beheaded the king and after the victory, the Deccan army hung the king’s head on a spear and went around displaying it all over Vijayanagar.
And because people were not accepting the defeat of Vijayanagar and the victory of Deccan Sultan, then he made fun of the generals captured in Vijayanagar by bringing them in front of the people and showed his victory. After this, the Deccan army brutally crushed the people of Vijayanagara and its capital Hampi for six consecutive months. Troubled him a lot. The army begins devastating Hampi, the capital of Vijayanagara. Looting and theft took place in Vijayanagar for three consecutive days.
Thousands were massacred and the Vijayanagara Empire was completely ruined. Three days later, the Deccan Army first started killing the people in Hampi outright. He did not see elders, old people, children, women or anything. Started killing people and then set fire to the entire city. The flames of the fire that broke out in Hampi rose so high that it terrified the hearts of the people and thus the Vijayanagara Empire was completely destroyed.
And after this its control came to the Sultan’s army. Although this did not lead to the complete collapse of the Vijayanagara Empire, but due to being powerless, it started moving rapidly towards decline and in 1646, the huge Vijayanagara Empire completely collapsed. This defeat was so big that after this the Vijayanagara Empire could never rise again.
Anyway, see you again with the powerful explanation of the History.
