Foundation of the Vijayanagara Empire
- Date
- 1336 CE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- South India (Deccan)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
In 1336 the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya of the Sangama family founded the Vijayanagara Empire on the Tungabhadra river in the Deccan, naming it after its new capital, Vijayanagara (the City of Victory, near modern Hampi).
The two had served the Kakatiya and Kampili kingdoms before those states fell to Delhi Sultanate armies in the 1320s, and the new realm crystallised as the principal Hindu power resisting the southward expansion of Muslim sultanates. Over the following two centuries Vijayanagara grew into a wealthy and cosmopolitan empire dominating southern India, sustained by intensive agriculture, control of the Deccan diamond and textile trade, and a great horse trade through its ports. Its capital became one of the largest and richest cities in the world, admired by Persian and Portuguese visitors, and a major patron of temple architecture, Telugu and Sanskrit literature and Hindu revival. The empire endured until its catastrophic defeat at Talikota in 1565.
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Empires active in 1336 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Mongol Empire1206 CE – 1368 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Sukhothai Kingdom1238 CE – 1438 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Kublai Khan founds the Yuan dynasty and conquers Song China1271 CE (conquest completed 1279)
- Founding of the Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Law of Peacec. 1450 (scholarly estimate; oral tradition as early as 1142)
- Temüjin proclaimed Genghis Khan, uniting the Mongols1206 CE
- Founding of Tenochtitlan by the Mexica1325 CE
- Founding of the Ming dynasty in China1368 CE
- Rise of Timur (Tamerlane) and his Central Asian empirec. 1370 CE (empire to 1405)
Further reading
The wider story
India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765
Masterful, readable synthesis of the sultanate era.
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