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POLITICAL

HISTORY .

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The Vijayanagar power now fell rapidly into decay. The CHAP. II.

VIJAYANAnobles who ruled its outlying provinces began to throw off their GAR KINGS , 1335-1565 .

allegiance and declare themselves independent and much of the country was plunged into anarchy.

At Penukonda Sadásiva remained king in name, though in Tirumala

reality a prisoner, until 1568 when Tirumala (so it is said) murdered throne. seizes the him and seized the throne for himself.

Under his orders the Penu-

konda fort was repaired and extended¹. He was succeeded in 1575 by his son Ranga, who shortly afterwards transferred his capital to Chandragiri, in the North Arcot district.

Ranga was followed in 1586 by his brother Venkata, who ruled End of the

for 28 years and died an old man in 1614. During his reign more of elijayanagar empire. his vassals-among them the viceroys of Madura, Tanjore and Mysore-threw off their allegiance. At his death there were

widespread revolts, disturbances and civil warfare, and the power of Vijayanagar was virtually at an end. In 1639 a king of the line named Ranga, who was ruling at Chandragiri, granted to the English the land on which Fort St. George is now built, but in 1646 both Chandragiri and Chingleput, which was also one of his nominal capitals, were taken from him by the king of Golconda and he fled to the protection of the chief of Bednúr, one of the few of the former dependents of the empire who continued to acknowledge his suzerainty. Such had been the former

prestige of the fallen kings that for many years afterwards grants to temples and the like were declared by loyal descendants of their

subjects to be made by their royal permission. But such phrases

1

were merely polite fiction, for the last remnant of their power had long, since been torn from them. The existing representative of this great line is the Rája of Anegundi on the bank of the Tungabhadra

in the Nizam's Dominions, who subsists upon a small jaghir and a pension paid him by the British Government.

Meanwhile the Musalman kings had gradually extended their hold over the district. At first their mutual jealousies and

THE MUHAMMADAN

PERIOD.

animosities had prevented them from reaping to the full the fruits of their victory at Talikóta, and some of the strongest of the Vijayanagar fortresses remained in the possession of the local governors of the empire. But eventually the kings of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar agreed to take different lines of conquest, so that their operations should not clash, and the former proceeded to invade the country south of the Kistna, including the Bellary and Anantapur districts. Inscription No. 336 of 1901 in the records of the Government Epigraphist.