Place · battle · India
Raichur
The 1520 CE battle at Raichur in the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab (Karnataka), where the Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya decisively defeated Bijapur Sultan Ismail Adil Shah to take the Raichur doab from Bijapur. The battle is the high-water mark of a reign that also gilded Tirumala Venkateshwara (1517), rebuilt Hampi, and expanded the Vijayanagara empire from Odisha to Cape Comorin. Portuguese artillery hired by Krishnadevaraya through the Goa governor Lopo Soares de Albergaria was decisive on the field — the first major use of Portuguese guns in Indian warfare. The Raichur doab remained Vijayanagara until the 1565 Battle of Talikota. Krishnadevaraya's own commentary on the battle survives in the Amuktamalyada.
- Date
- 1520 CE
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 16.200, 77.360
Connections (4)
- CampaignHampi / Vijayanagara
Krishnadevaraya took the Raichur doab from Bijapur in 1520, in the campaign that marks the high point of Vijayanagara power, and the same reign gilded the Tirumala vimana and built the Vittala and Krishna temples at the capital. The doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra was the permanent object of Deccan warfare — rich, irrigated and claimed by whoever held either bank — and Raichur changed hands repeatedly.
- PatronageHampi Vitthala complex
The Vitthala complex with its stone chariot and its ringing pillars was built out in the same years as the Raichur campaign of 1520 — the high-water mark of Krishnadevaraya's reign. Imperial building and imperial campaigning are the same budget: the doab's revenue paid for the temple, and the temple asserted the claim. Forty-five years later the complex was sacked and the city abandoned.
- CampaignBijapur (Vijayapura)
The Raichur doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra was the permanent frontier dispute of the Deccan, fertile and fortified and claimed by both. Krishnadevaraya took it from Ismail Adil Shah in 1520; Bijapur took it back after Talikota. Nuniz's Portuguese account of the 1520 campaign is the fullest description of a Vijayanagara army on the march that survives.
- CampaignKrishnadevaraya
Krishnadevaraya took the Raichur doab from Ismail Adil Shah in 1520 by a frontal assault across the Krishna, and Nuniz's Portuguese account of the campaign is the fullest description of a Vijayanagara army on the march that survives. It is the high-water mark of the reign that also gilded Tirumala, rebuilt Hampi and kept these eight poets.
On these journeys
Sources
Vijayanagara chronicles; Nuniz
Open Raichur in the repository →