After his defeat of the rival sultans, Ismail Adil Shah turned his attention towards Vijayanagara. In 1516 CE, sensing an opportunity when Krishnadevaraya was engaged elsewhere in battle with Kalinga, he attacked the Raichur fort and took over its control from Vijayanagara – sowing the seeds for the grand battle that followed.

The Battle of Raichur

Raichur, in Karnataka, is located between the two converging rivers of Krishna and Tungabhadra (doab) – causing its land to be extremely fertile and amenable to growing a variety of crops like cotton, chillies and sesame. This made it a significant asset for whichever kingdom that controlled it.

Key to taking the Raichur doab and the revenues that came with it was control over the Raichur fort – a city over which there had been much conflict between the Deccan sultanates and Vijayanagara in the past. Krishnadevaraya had taken control over it during his early campaigns but, as mentioned earlier, Ismail Adil Shah managed to wrest it away when Krishnadevaraya was engaged in his battles with Kalinga.

The war with Kalinga concluded in 1516, with the Kalinga king Prataparudra surrendering before the might of the Vijayanagara armies. With the threat from Kalinga having been subdued, Krishnadevaraya turned his focus back to his primary enemies – the Deccan sultanates.

The major trigger for the war to begin is also said to have been the dishonesty of a merchant named Syed Maraikar, whom Raya had entrusted with 40,000 gold coins to procure horses from the Portuguese at Goa. Maraikar fled with the coins to Bijapur and sought protection from Adil Shah, who gave it, spurning requests from Vijayanagara to hand the culprit back.

The refusal of Adil Shah to cooperate is said to have forced Raya’s resolve and catalysed his decision to launch the Raichur campaign. In early 1520, the Vijayanagara armies – led by Krishnadevaraya – set course for Raichur.

Much of what is known about the battle is from the accounts of Fernao Nunes, a Portuguese traveller and chronicler, who accompanied the army to Raichur and was an eyewitness to what followed.

According to Nunes, the Vijayanagara army assembled by Raya was of a massive scale – a 760,000 strong force including 32,600 horses, 550 elephants and 14 contingents of fully armed soldiers. Krishnadevaraya’s legendary commander Pemmasani Ramalinga Nayaka was also part of the forces. The party was also said to include water carriers, courtesans and cooks numbering into the thousands. In addition, Raya had also deployed 50,000 scouts who would ride ahead of the army and send back reports about the enemy to the base camp.

The engagement began with the forces of Vijayanagara surrounding the Raichur fort and commencing their siege from the eastern side – where the fort was said to have been its weakest. The siege continued for three months, with the Raichur fort’s garrison – armed with 200 heavy cannons and several smaller ones – giving a tough fight to the Vijayanagara forces under Ramalinga Nayaka.

The battle took a different turn in May 1520 CE, when Ismail Adil Shah’s army arrived at Raichur and set up camp on the farther side of the Krishna River (around 25km from the Vijayanagara army). The Bijapur army was of a lesser number than Vijayanagara, but Adil Shah had put his faith in his 900-strong artillery, which he felt would be decisive in the battle ahead.

Adil Shah’s initial plan was to entice Raya to try to cross the Krishna River and engage – allowing his artillery to destroy the Vijayanagara forces while they were busy crossing the waters. But Raya – perhaps warned by his scouts – chose not to take the bait and waited patiently for Adil Shah’s next move.

Finally, recognising that the Vijayanagara siege would be successful at some point if he didn’t engage, Adil Shah crossed the Krishna River but still set up camp close to the waters in order to assure good water supply to his camp.

The armies collided on 20 May 1520 CE, with Krishnadevaraya announcing his intent with the beating of war drums at the crack of dawn. The scale of the sound – including military orders and the cry of the beasts accompanying the army – emanating from the camp was described by Nunes as “It seemed as if the sky should fall to the earth (because of the noise)” and “if you asked anything you could not hear yourself speak and you had to ask by signs”.

Raya divided his army into seven wings and, initially, only ordered the first two – led by his father-in-law Kumara Virayya – to attack. Raya himself was to take command of the remaining five.

Adil Shah – who, in stark contrast to Raya, had decided to stay behind his army and take no part in battle – wanted Raya and the bulk of his forces to engage as early as possible. The reason for it was that he wanted the maximum concentration of the Vijayanagara army in the firing range of his artillery in order to inflict all-out damage and, if luck would have it, slay the king as well.

Raya’s decision to send just two wings confounded him again, and soon Kumara Virayya’s spirited assault cut through the Bijapur forces and pushed them back into their trenches.

Adil Shah was now in a conundrum. The long time it would take to reload artillery during those days meant that he had to fire his cannons at a carefully calibrated time in order to ensure maximum damage and give his men enough time to reload.

Finally, when the Vijayanagara forces were within range and his front flank almost decimated by Virayya, Adil Shah ordered his artillery to open fire. The fires rained down on the Vijayanagara forces killing many men, horses and elephants – forcing them to retreat from the battlefield.

Sensing an imminent victory, the Bijapur forces attacked with full flourish, pursuing the retreating soldiers and slaughtering them as they fled away.

Krishnadevaraya responded almost immediately – charging onto the battlefield with the remaining five divisions. Raya’s entry swung the battle decisively – the Bijapur soldiers had broken formation while charging forward and were disorganised. The avalanche of Raya’s five divisions decimated them and swept them into the Krishna River.

Raya’s onslaught was so fierce that the fleeing Bijapur soldiers abandoned their camp completely and ran into the river to save their lives, as the Vijayanagara army chased them and wreaked havoc. A desperate but brave attempt by the Bijapur commander Salabat Khan to attack Raya directly was also subdued and Khan was taken prisoner.

In the meantime, Adil Shah, helped by his bodyguard Asad Khan, fled the camp on an elephant, leaving Krishnadevaraya to occupy the sultanate’s camp as well.

With the army of the sultanate destroyed, Raya turned his attention back to the fort and continued the siege. The second assault was further aided by the arrival of the Portuguese captain, Christovao de Figueiredo, along with a troop of 20 musketeers, to deliver horses to Raya.

The Portuguese musketeers were deployed to attack the defenders of the fort, who were shot down one by one, ending with the death of the governor of the fort, after which the Raichur fort soon surrendered to Krishnadevaraya and the Vijayanagara army.

Aftermath

The crushing victory over the Bijapur sultanate took the power of the Vijayanagara Kingdom to its zenith with none of the sultanates daring to risk another attack during Krishnadevaraya’s lifetime. Very soon, Raya and his armies marched into Bijapur and raised its former capital, Gulburga, to the ground.

These successive victories established Krishnadevaraya as the leading monarch of the Indian subcontinent – so much so that the tales of his valour are said to have removed any notions of attacking south India from the mind of Babur after his victory over Ibrahim Lodhi.