Achyuta Deva Raya
Achyuta Deva Raya ruled Vijayanagara from 1529 to 1542, in the shadow of his predecessor and of the man who would displace his line. He was a younger brother of Krishnadevaraya and was raised to the throne on his death, against a rival claim advanced on behalf of Krishnadevaraya's infant son by Aliya Rama Raya, the dead king's son-in-law. The compromise that followed gave Achyuta the crown and left Rama Raya inside the state with an army and a grievance, which set the shape of the next thirty-six years. His reign is usually written as decline, and the sources that say so are not disinterested: much of the narrative comes from writers close to the faction that supplanted his family. What is clear is that he held the empire together without adding to it. He campaigned in the south against the Tiruvadi ruler of Travancore and against rebellious governors in the Tamil country, and he kept the Bijapur frontier quiet rather than contesting it. The Portuguese continued to sell him horses and to complain about the terms. He is the last king Fernao Nunes saw. Nunes lived at the capital for some three years in the 1530s and carried his chronicle of the dynasty down to this reign, which makes Achyuta the point where the fullest European account of Vijayanagara stops and the empire's last quarter-century passes into other hands. He died in 1542. The succession collapsed at once into a fight between his nephew and his brother-in-law, and Rama Raya settled it by installing Sadashiva Raya, a nephew of Achyuta, as king and ruling in his name. Achyuta's own temple at the capital, at the foot of Matanga hill, is one of the last great building projects of the empire, and it stands in the ruins with his name on it. He is a ruler remembered mainly for who came before and after him, which is a fair description of the position he inherited.
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: ruler, head_of_state
