Ithihasa India History Podcast Narendra Vikram D

The first season is all about the erstwhile Vijayanagara Empire, one of the Crown Jewels of rich South Indian history.

In this season, we will explore the Cultural and Historical significance of Vijayanagara.

We will together delve into Vijayanagara's foundation, implosion, inner workings, its weaknesses, what made it tick & its influence on the subcontinent in the realms of culture, arts, religion, literature & architecture.

If you would love to learn more about India's rich civilizational past , hop on to the train. I promise you, it will be a fun and enriching ride.

Will share the wonderful history in small 30-min chunks that will get to the meat of the topic.

This episode is about the infamous Battle Of Talikota, which was the beginning of the end for the Vijayanagara empire. Talikota was Vijayanagara’s Waterloo moment and a watershed event in both the Deccan & Indian history.

Vijayanagara’s majestic capital was sacked beyond redemption in the year of 1565. Today you know it as Hampi, a UNESCO world heritage site in the state of Karnataka, India.

The scars of the 6 month long systematic pillage and destruction are still visible in the heritage city of Hampi.

Many who visit Hampi expecting it to be a happy trip, come back with a tear in their eyes after seeing what was done to it.

In this episode, we will explore the prevailing narratives around battle of Talikota in 1565 AD, reasons behind Vijayanagara’s decisive rout in the epic battle.

By the end of it we will try to answer some crucial questions like, what is it that Rama Raya did wrong?

What did the Deccan Sultanate alliance do right? What were it's tactics on the field? Who played better psychological warfare?

What role did technology of the day play in the end result?

Or was it sheer luck that the alliance won on that day?

We will pick up from where we left previously.

In the last episode we understood the reasons for the defeat in the battle from a military perspective and why the Deccan Sultanate Alliance had the upper hand.

In this episode, we will dig deeper into the causes for Rama Raya’s diplomatic defeat that led to the battle of Talikota, which ultimately led to his death and was the beginning of the end for the empire itself.

How did Aliya Rama Raya overplay his hand? Did he push his luck too far this time?

What would have led one of the most powerful men in India at that time to engage in such suicidal diplomacy which brought down the empire crashing.

After all we all are creatures of habit and deep desires.

There has to be some sort of motivation fueling even the deceptively irrational of behaviors.

In this episode we will decipher the motivations of Aliya Rama Raya that shaped his foreign policy which ultimately led to the fall of Vijayanagara.

In the last episode we traced the rise and fall of the autocratic Vijayanagara regent, Aliya Rama Raya and how his policies ultimately led to the beginning of the end for the empire.

In this episode, we will look at how Politics and Power worked in a highly cultured society like Vijayanagara and more so in it’s cosmopolitan capital, Hampi.