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Bahmani–Vijayanagar Wars: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

A century and a half of war across the Deccan between the Muslim Bahmani sultans and the Hindu emperors of Vijayanagar, ended by the ruin of both.

Fought
1362 to 1509
Duration
147 years
Dates
1362 to 1509 (Talikota 1565 as coda)
Deaths
Chroniclers claim 500,000 in the 1360s alone; the total is unknown but very large
Bahmani
Sultans of Gulbarga and Bidar; Muhammad Shah I, Firuz Shah, Mahmud Gawan
Vijayanagar
Sangama and Saluva dynasties; Bukka I, Harihara II, Deva Raya I and II
Result
Long stalemate over the Raichur Doab; both states eventually fragment

The Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars (1362-1509) were fought between the Bahmani Sultanate, founded in 1347 by rebels against Delhi, and the Vijayanagara Empire, founded around 1336, over the fertile Raichur Doab between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers and the ports of the west coast. Muhammad Shah I's campaigns of the 1360s reportedly killed hundreds of thousands; Firuz Shah and Deva Raya I fought at Pangal (1420); Deva Raya II hired Muslim archers to match the sultans; and the Bahmani minister Mahmud Gawan seized Goa in 1472. After the Bahmani kingdom split into five sultanates in the 1490s and Krishnadevaraya took Raichur in 1520, the wars continued between the successor states until the sultans combined to destroy Vijayanagar at Talikota in 1565.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

120013001400150016001700180019002000Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars (1362 to 1509)Open: Delhi SultanateDelhi Sultanate (1206 to 1526)Open: Timurid EmpireTimurid Empire (1370 to 1507)Open: Conquests of TimurConquests of Timur (1370 to 1405)Open: First Portuguese EmpireFirst Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)Open: Mughal EmpireMughal Empire (1526 to 1857)Open: First French colonial empireFirst French colonial empire (1534 to 1814)Open: Danish colonial empireDanish colonial empire (1536 to 1953)Open: Akbar's conquest of North IndiaAkbar's conquest of North India (1556 to 1605)Open: Deccan warsDeccan wars (1680 to 1707)

Estimated population of Vijayanagar city

01252503755001400: 2001450: 3501520: 5001565: 5001570: 20140014201440146014801500152015401560thousands

Timeline of the Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars

  1. 1336
    Vijayanagar founded
  2. 1347
    Bahmani sultanate founded
  3. 1362
    First Bahmani-Vijayanagar war
  4. 1406
    Firuz Shah's victory and marriage alliance
  5. 1420
    Pangal
  6. 1472
    Mahmud Gawan takes Goa
  7. 1509
    Krishnadevaraya's accession
  8. 1520
    Raichur
  9. 1565
    Talikota

Two states born of Delhi's retreat

Muhammad bin Tughluq's overextension let both arise: Harihara and Bukka founded Vijayanagar on the Tungabhadra around 1336 and Zafar Khan the Bahmani sultanate at Gulbarga in 1347. Bukka I attacked in 1362; Muhammad Shah I's counter-invasion, using guns for possibly the first time in Indian battle, ravaged the Vijayanagar country and, Ferishta says, killed 500,000 before a treaty forbade the killing of non-combatants.

The fifteenth century

Firuz Shah Bahmani married a Vijayanagar princess after victory in 1406 but lost at Pangal in 1420; Deva Raya II recruited Muslim horsemen and archers and built a mosque for them, and Vijayanagar grew into a city of half a million that Persian and Portuguese visitors compared to Rome. The Bahmani capital moved to Bidar; Mahmud Gawan's reforms and conquest of Goa (1472) marked the sultanate's peak before his execution in 1481 on forged evidence.

Fragmentation and Talikota

The Bahmani state broke into the sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar and Golconda by 1518; Vijayanagar under the Tuluva dynasty's Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529) took Raichur from Bijapur in 1520 and dominated the south. His successor Rama Raya played the sultanates off until they united and destroyed the Vijayanagar army at Talikota in January 1565, sacking the capital for months. The Deccan sultanates fell in turn to the Mughals in the next century.

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8 surprising things about the Bahmani-Vijayanagar wars

  1. The Portuguese traveller Paes said Vijayanagar was 'as large as Rome and very beautiful', with bazaars stretching for miles.
  2. Deva Raya II employed 2,000 Muslim cavalrymen and, tradition says, had them swear on a Quran placed in his throne room.
  3. The 1360s treaty that both sides should spare unarmed people is one of the earliest laws of war in Indian history.
  4. The Raichur Doab changed hands at least a dozen times in 200 years.
  5. Vijayanagar's ruins at Hampi cover 25 square km and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  6. Muhammad Shah I's use of cannon in 1368 is among the earliest recorded in India.
  7. Mahmud Gawan, a Persian merchant turned prime minister, founded a madrasa at Bidar whose ruins still stand.
  8. The five Deccan sultanates that grew from the Bahmani state gave the world Golconda's diamonds and Bijapur's Gol Gumbaz.

Sources

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