To revert to the history, which need only be shortly summarised since we have seen Vijayanagar destroyed and its territories in a state of political confusion and disturbance.

I omit altogether the alternate political combinations and dissolutions, the treacheries, quarrels, and fights of the various Muhammadan states after 1565, as unnecessary for our purpose and in order to avoid prolixity, summarising only a few matters which more particularly concern the territories formerly under the great Hindu Empire.

According to Golkonda accounts, a year after the great battle which resulted in the destruction of Vijayanagar, a general of the Qutb Shah, Raffat Khan Lari, ALIAS Malik Naib, marched against Rajahmundry, which was finally captured from the Hindus in A.D. 1571 -- 72 (A.H. 979).

Shortly after his return to Bijapur (so says Firishtah), Ali Adil Shah moved again with an army towards Vijayanagar, but retired on the Ahmadnagar Sultan advancing to oppose him; and not long afterwards he made an ineffectual attempt to reduce Goa. Retiring from the coast, he marched to attack Adoni, then under one of the vassal chiefs of Vijayanagar, who had made himself independent in that tract. The place was taken, and the Nizam Shah agreed with the king of Bijapur that he would not interfere with the latter's attempts to annex the territories south of the Krishna, if he on his part were left free to conquer Berar.

In 1573, therefore, Ali Adil moved against Dharwar and Bankapur. The siege of the latter place under its chief, Velappa Naik, now independent, lasted for a year and six months, when the garrison, reduced to great straits, surrendered. Firishtah[346] states that the Adil Shah destroyed a "superb temple" there, and himself laid the first stone of a mosque which was built on its foundation. More successes followed in the Konkan. Three years later Bellamkonda was similarly attacked, and the Raya in terror retired from Penukonda to Chandragiri. This campaign, however, resulted in failure, apparently owing to the Shah of Golkonda assisting the Hindus. In 1579 the king of Golkonda, in breach of his contract, attacked and reduced the fortresses of Vinukonda and Kondavid as well as Kacharlakota and Kammam,[347] thus occupying large tracts south of the Krishna.

In 1580 Ali Adil was murdered. Firishtah in his history of the Qutb Shahs gives the date as Thursday, 23rd Safar, A.H. 987, but the true day appears to have been Monday, 24th Safar, A.H. 988, corresponding to Monday, April 11, A.D. 1580. This at least is the date given by an eye-witness, one Rafi-ud-Din Shirazi, who held an important position at the court at the time. (The question is discussed by Major King in the INDIAN ANTIQUARY, vol. xvii. p. 221.) Ibrahim Qutb Shah of Golkonda also died in 1580 and was succeeded by Muhammad Quli, his third son, who in 1589 founded the city of Haidarabad, originally carted Bhagnagar. He carried on successful wars in the present Kurnool and Cuddapah districts, capturing Kurnool, Nandial, Dole, and Gandikota, following up these successes by inroads into the eastern districts of Nellore.

King Tirumala of Vijayanagar was in 1575 followed apparently by his second son, Ranga II., whose successor was his brother Venkata I.[348] (1586). The latter reigned for at least twenty-eight years, and died an old man in 1614. At his death there were widespread revolts, disturbances, and civil warfare, as we shall presently see from the account of Barradas given in the next chapter. An important inscription of his reign, dated in A.D. 1601 -- 2, and recorded on copper-plates, has been published by Dr. Hultzsch.[349]

In 1593 the Bijapur Sultan, Ibrahim Adil, invaded Mysore, which then belonged to the Raya, and reduced the place after a three months' siege. In the same year this Sultan's brother, Ismail, who had been kept prisoner at Belgaum, rose against his sovereign and declared himself independent king of the place. He was besieged there by the royal troops' but owing to treachery in the camp they failed to take the place, and the territories in the neighbourhood were for some time a prey to insurrections and disturbances. Eventually they were reduced to submission and the rebel was killed. Contemporaneously with these events, the Hindus again tried to obtain possession of Adoni, but without success;[350] and a war broke out between the rival kingdoms of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar.