Aliya Rama Raya
Aliya Rama Raya governed Vijayanagara for more than twenty years without ever being its king, and his policy destroyed it in an afternoon. He was Krishnadevaraya's son-in-law - aliya is the Telugu word, and it stuck to his name - and he had served the Sultanate of Golconda before entering Vijayanagara service, which mattered: he knew the Deccan courts from the inside. After Achyuta Deva Raya died in 1542 he ended the succession fight by putting Sadashiva Raya on the throne and keeping him there, in confinement for much of the reign, while he ruled in his name. His method with the five Muslim sultanates that had replaced the Bahmani kingdom was to make sure they never combined. He allied with Bijapur against Ahmadnagar, then with Ahmadnagar against Bijapur, took part in the sack of rival capitals as a partner, and for two decades it worked: Vijayanagara was the arbiter of the Deccan rather than its target. It worked until it did not. The sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar composed their own quarrels, sealed the alliance with marriages, and marched together in 1565. Contemporary Persian writers say he had made the coalition possible by humiliating its members in the years when he could afford to, and the charge is at least consistent with what he did. He was about eighty at the battle of Talikota and commanded from a litter. The Vijayanagara army was larger than the coalition's and was winning the centre when two of his own Muslim commanders changed sides, his position was overrun, and he was captured and beheaded on the field by the ruler of Ahmadnagar. The head was raised on a spear and the army disintegrated. The capital was abandoned within days and sacked for months, and the dynasty that survived ruled from Penukonda and then Chandragiri over a fraction of what he had held. He is the clearest case in Indian history of a diplomacy that succeeds every year until the year it fails completely.
- Lived: 1484 CE – 1565 CE
- Nationality: Indian
- Roles: ruler, statesman
