Battle of Talikota and the fall of Vijayanagara
- Date
- 23 January 1565
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Deccan, southern India
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 23 January 1565 a coalition of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Bidar and Golconda decisively defeated the army of the Vijayanagara Empire at Talikota (Rakshasi-Tangadi) in northern Karnataka.
The battle turned on the sultanates' artillery and the capture and execution of Vijayanagara's powerful regent, Aliya Rama Raya. In the aftermath the splendid imperial capital of Vijayanagar (Hampi) was sacked and systematically destroyed over several months and never reoccupied. Talikota broke the dominant Hindu power of southern India and permanently reconfigured Deccan politics, accelerating the southward spread of the sultanates while a rump Vijayanagara state lingered under the Aravidu dynasty. Modern historians such as Richard Eaton caution against reading the conflict as a simple religious clash, noting Rama Raya's own shifting alliances with Muslim rulers, but the destruction of Hampi remains one of the great ruptures of early modern South Asian history.
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Empires active in 23 January 1565
- Songhai Empire1464 CE to 1591 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE to 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE to 1974 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE to 1644 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE to 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE to 1999 CE
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Further reading
The wider story
The Mughal Empire
The standard scholarly survey (New Cambridge History of India).
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