Strange circumstances conspired to bring about the downfall of the great Vijayanagar Empire which had been partially restored to its former glory by Venkata against heavy odds. He had shifted his capital from Penugonda to Chandragiri and finally to Vellore but it only made the northern parts more vulnerable to attacks from neighbouring Muslim states.

However, it was the question of succession which shook the very foundation of the Empire and eventually brought about its complete disintegration. Venkata had six wives but none of them bore him a son. One of the queens played a fraud and presented a son from one of her maids as her own.

To avoid public scandal, Sri Ranga did not disown the child and married this boy at the age of fourteen to a daugter of Jaggaraya, brother of the deceitful queen. However, he refused to recognize him as heir and nominated Sri Ranga, the second son of his elder brother Rama as his successor.

As soon as Venkata died, Jaggaraya refused to recognize Sri Ranga as the King, and instead raised his sisters’s putative son to the throne. Sri Ranga was imprisoned along with his family. Most of the nobles deserted Sri Ranga but one brave noble Yachama Nayaka took up the cause of the rightful claimant and was able to rescue Sri Ranga’s elder brother Rama.

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Some nobles now came forward to support his brother’s cause. Jaggaraya retaliated by murdering all the members of the royal family. It led to bloody civil war in which almost all the nobles and feudatories with a few notable exceptions such as Raghunatha Nayaka of Tanjore, sided with the traitor.

This civil was lasted 2 years. Jaggaraya was killed in battle. Toppur Rama Deva Raya was raised to the throne in 1617 but this war proved more disastrous than the battle of Talikota and hastened the end of the Vijayanagar Empire.