Vijayanagar

By 1500 Vijayanagar was said to be the second-largest city in the world after Beijing, its markets drawing traders from across the Deccan, from Persia and, after 1510, from Portuguese Goa. Its height came under Krishna Deva Raya, who reigned from 1509 to 1529: his armies took Raichur from the Deccan sultans in 1520, and many of the city's great monuments were finished or begun in his time.

After a civil war in 1542–43, real power passed to his son-in-law Rama Raya, who kept the young king Sadashiva Raya a virtual prisoner and played the Deccan sultans against one another until they united against him. In January 1565 they met his army at Talikota; two of his generals went over to the enemy, Rama Raya was captured and beheaded, and the army broke. For months the sultans' troops plundered the undefended capital, leaving it in ruins, and the court never came back, moving south to Penukonda.