Deccan Sultanates
The Battle of Talikota
The Deccan sultanates break Vijayanagara, 1565 CE
972 AH / 1565 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Battlefield of Talikota (Rakkasa-Tangadi), on the Krishna, in the Deccan
16.3100, 76.3300 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
On 23 January 1565 (972 AH), on the open plain of the Deccan near the Krishna river, between the villages that gave the field its other names of Rakkasa-Tangadi and Bannihatti, a confederacy of the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan met and destroyed the army of the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara at the battle the Persian histories call Talikota. The sultanates, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar, were the heirs of the broken Bahmani kingdom and were usually at odds among themselves; but the growing dominance of Vijayanagara under its aged and powerful regent Rama Raya, who for years had played one Deccan court against another and intervened in their quarrels, drove four of them into an unlikely alliance. Their combined host, with a strong train of field artillery, faced the far larger Vijayanagara army on this ground. Ferishta (Muhammad Qasim Ferishta), whose Tarikh-i Ferishta is the standard Persian history of the Deccan, records that the confederate guns, firing into the dense ranks of the empire's centre, broke its array, and that the day turned when Rama Raya himself was taken and put to death on the field. With its commander dead the great army dissolved into a rout. The victory ended Vijayanagara's supremacy in the south at a single stroke. In the weeks that followed the empire's magnificent capital, Vijayanagara on the Tungabhadra, well to the south of the battlefield, was entered and plundered over months and largely abandoned; its surviving rulers withdrew to lesser seats and the empire, though it lingered on in reduced form, never recovered. The casualty figures and even the precise day are given variously in the sources and should be read as approximate, but the outcome is not in doubt. This scene shows the battle at its height, on the open field near the Krishna: the confederate sultanates' army on the near wing, its green banners raised and a heavy bronze field cannon smoking in the foreground as its crew works the gun, the cavalry of both sides charging across the dusty ground between the lines, and at the centre of the enemy host a war-elephant bearing an armoured howdah pushed forward beneath a crowd of golden Vijayanagara standards. In keeping with the project's ethics no figure is shown by likeness, faces are distant in the dust and smoke, and the killing of the day is not depicted.
What you see
The fighting is joined on a dry, dusty plain of the Deccan interior under a pale, hazy sky, the bare brown earth churned by horses and trampled flat. This is the open upland of the south Indian plateau, not a river valley of the north or the green coast, the kind of broad arid ground on which the great battles of the Deccan were decided.
In the foreground a crew kneels to serve a long bronze muzzle-loading field cannon on a heavy timbered carriage, its mouth still smoking from the discharge. Massed gunpowder artillery served like this in the open field was the decisive arm of the day, a fearsome and fairly new instrument in the wars of the south.
At the centre of the enemy host a great war-elephant carries an armoured howdah of riders into the press, tall and conspicuous above the lines. The Hindu empire of the south fought with such elephants and led from them; here one is driven forward through the dust and smoke of the clash.
Plain green war-banners ride above the gun-crew and the cavalry on one wing, while a forest of bright golden, yellow and red standards crowds the opposing ranks. The green marks the confederate army of the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan; the gaudy massed banners and the elephant mark the far larger host of the Hindu empire they have come to break.
Squadrons of horse charge and wheel across the open ground between the two armies while dense files of shield-bearing foot, helmeted and carrying round bucklers and spears, stand ready on the flank. This is the battle at its height, the moment of the clash, not a siege or a skirmish but two great hosts locked on open country.
The field lies in the contested borderland of the Deccan, the frontier between the Muslim sultanates that held the northern plateau and the Hindu empire that ruled the far south. The decisive battle was fought here on open ground near a great river, well to the north of the enemy capital.
The battle and the rout that followed are recorded in the Persian histories of the Deccan, above all the chronicle of Ferishta. In keeping with the project's ethics no person is shown by likeness, faces are distant in the dust, and the killing of the day is not dwelt on.
Further reading & cross-references
Ferishta (Muhammad Qasim Ferishta), Tarikh-i Ferishta / Gulshan-i Ibrahimi (early 17th c.): The standard Persian history of the Deccan sultanates, written a generation after the event at the Bijapur court. The primary source for the confederacy of the four sultanates, the role of the field artillery, the rout and the capture and death of Rama Raya. Confidence high, with the caution that it writes from the victors' side.
Persian and Deccani chronicles of the Deccan sultanates: The Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda court histories that record the alliance, the order of battle and the campaign. Used to corroborate Ferishta on the confederacy and the course of the battle.
Accounts of the battle of Talikota / Rakkasa-Tangadi / Bannihatti (1565): Used for the location near the Krishna, the variant names and dates of the field, the decisive part of the gunpowder artillery and the consequences for Vijayanagara. The exact day and the casualty figures vary in the sources and are approximate.
Robert Sewell, A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar) (1900), with the Portuguese accounts of Nuniz and Paes: Standard modern compilation, drawing on the Portuguese eyewitnesses who knew the empire shortly before its fall. A non-Muslim cross-reference for the scale of the army, the war-elephants and the regent Rama Raya, and the sack of the capital that followed. Used for confirmation, not for the religious frame.
The battlefield terrain of the northern Deccan near the Krishna (extant landscape): The dry, dusty plateau, granite uplands and thorn scrub of the interior constrain the depiction of the ground; the field lay on open country north of the capital, not in the river valley of Hampi.
Iqtidar Alam Khan, Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India (OUP, 2004): Used for the role and handling of massed field artillery in sixteenth-century Deccan warfare and its decisive use at Talikota. Confidence high.
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