Krishnadevaraya was undoubtedly the greatest of the Vijayanagar rulers. As it has been rightly observed that his “life was a series of efforts to restore to the State its lost power and prestige, and assure it a permanent peace.

He proved more than a match for the contemporary powers of the Deccan and South India, and recovered most of the lost territories of the empire.

As a warrior, a statesman and a scholar, he excelled all the other rulers of his time in India”. He was a great general who won all the battles he fought. It was not only by his military prowess alone that he was successful in planting the boar- standard on the citadels of Cuttack, Bidar, Gulbarga and Bijapur but his organisational skill and tactical moves paid dividends.

The impregnable fort of Udayagiri could only be captured by his resourcefulness. He had to make way for his soldiers to climb after cutting down rocks and boulders. In case of Kondavidu he had to raise wooden platforms as high as the ramparts of the fort to enable his soldiers to fight on the same level.

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He would himself lead his soldiers in the battlefield and would be in the forefront which inspired and enthused them. He was loved by his soldiers who did not hesitate to lay down their lives in the service of their master. He would, however, be equally merciless and put them to the sword if they turned their backs on the enemy.

His incessant wars hardly left him time to carry out any large-scale reforms. He, however, kept up the old tradition of undertaking tours of every part of his dominions at least once a year to meet the ryots and ordinary people and listen to their grievances. He kept a strict control over his ministers and other officials who were severely punished for their misdeeds.

He abolished some of the obnoxious taxes such as the marriage fee. To increase the revenue of the state, he brought new lands under cultivation by ordering deforestation of some areas. Foreign travellers such as Paes, Nuniz and Barbosa who visited Vijayanagar during his reign speak highly of the efficiency of administration and prosperity of the people.

Paes, for example, observed: “He is a great ruler and a man of much justice”. Barbosa praises the tolerant policy of the king: “The kings allows such freedom that every man may come and go and live according to his own creed without suffering any annoyance, and without any enquiry whether he is a Christian, Jew, Moor or heathen.

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Great equity and justice is observed to all not only by the rulers, but by the people, one to another.” In spite of his pre-occupations with the defence and reorganization of the territories conquered by him, Krishandevaraya founded a new town Nagalapur near Vijayanagar.

He built a number of temples and mansions in the new city. He engaged famous artists to decorate his newly constructed buildings. He is also credited with the building of thousand pillared mandapas and the raya-gopurams which were spread out throughout the country-side in South India.

Krishnadevaraya was a scholar of Telugu and Sanskrit. He wrote many works, only two of them, the Telugu Amuktamalyada and the Sanskrit drama Jambavati Kalyanam have come down to us. The beginning of independent Telugu literature is dated from his period.

The Telugu scholars produced original literature instead of mere adaptations from Sanskrit works. He extended his patronage to scholars in various languages particularly Telugu, Kannada and Tamil.

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His court was adorned with eight celebrated Telugu poets who were known as the ashta-diggajas or “the elephants supporting the eight cardinal points of the literary world”. He created a tradition of patronage of Telugu scholars which was followed by all his successors and helped in the promotion of literature in those languges. Thus, he made an everlasting contribution in the realm of Telugu language and literature.