A section from the journey
Talikota, and What Came After
In 1565, five neighbouring sultanates joined their armies and met Vijayanagara in battle at a place called Talikota. The empire lost, and its splendid capital was ruined. It was a heavy blow. But the story does not end in ashes. Smaller kingdoms, the Nayakas, rose from the empire's southern lands and carried the temple tradition onward for centuries more.
We have stood in the golden city at its height. Now we must tell a hard turn in its story. We will tell it plainly and gently, the way a teacher should speak of a sorrow that is real.
For all its strength, Vijayanagara had powerful neighbours to its north. On the Deccan plateau lay five sultanates. Often they quarrelled among themselves. But in the year 1565, they set their quarrels aside and joined their armies together, all against Vijayanagara.
The two great hosts met in battle near a village remembered as . At the head of the Vijayanagara army was an old and able commander named Rama Raya. In the fighting he was captured and killed. When their leader fell, the army broke and scattered.
In the days that followed, the victorious armies entered the splendid capital and ruined it. The same bright city a traveller had once called as large as Rome was emptied and broken, and it was never lived in again as a capital. Let us not hurry past this. It was a true and heavy loss to a great Hindu city.
“Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city.”
And yet — and this is the heart of our whole age — the story does not end in ashes. A capital is a place. A tradition is something larger, and harder to end. Even as the great city emptied, the life it had sheltered was already finding new homes.
From the empire's southern lands rose smaller kingdoms, ruled by chiefs called the Nayakas. At Madurai, at Tanjore, at Gingee, they took up the old and honoured task of caring for the temples. They built and gave and protected, and the southern tradition flowed on under them for two hundred years more.
So hold both truths together, the way this age asks us to. A great city fell, and that was a real grief. And the tradition it had guarded did not fall with it. It bent low, and then it rose again in new places. That is the pattern we keep meeting. Loss, and then renewal.
It is easy to think that when a great thing ends, all is lost. Yet often the deepest part of it simply moves on and begins again elsewhere. Have you ever seen something you loved come to an end, only to find its spirit carried on in a new and unexpected form?
Now we must tell a hard turn in the story, and we will tell it plainly. For all its glory, Vijayanagara had powerful neighbours. To its north lay five sultanates of the Deccan, who often quarrelled among themselves. In 1565 they set aside their quarrels and joined their armies against Vijayanagara. The two great hosts met in battle near a village remembered as Talikota. The empire's aged commander, Rama Raya, was captured and killed, and the army broke. In the days that followed, the magnificent capital was entered and ruined — the same city a traveller had once called as large as Rome. It was a real and heavy loss, and we do not soften it. Yet the deeper story of this age is not one of endings. The empire's southern lands gave rise to smaller kingdoms ruled by chiefs called the Nayakas — at Madurai, at Tanjore, at Gingee. They took up the old role of temple-patrons and carried the southern tradition forward for two centuries more. The capital fell; the tradition it had sheltered did not.
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