Deva Raya

Deva Raya I (reigned 1406–1422 CE) was a king of the Vijayanagara Empire (of the Sangama Dynasty). After Harihara II died there was a dispute between his sons over the throne in which Deva Raya I eventually emerged victor. He was a very capable ruler noted for his military exploits and his support to irrigation works in his kingdom. He modernized the Vijayanagara army by improving the cavalry, employing Turkic archers, procuring horses from Arabia and Persia. Of Deva Raya I, the Italian traveler Nicolo Conti, who visited Vijayanagara in c.1420, described thus: "In this city, there are 90,000 men fit to bear arms...there king is more powerful than all the kings of India". Conti also noted that the royal city had grown to a circumference of 60 mi. Deva Raya I was a patron of Kannada literature and architecture. Madhura, a noted Jain poet was in his court (and also in the court of his father King Harihara II) and wrote in Kannada the Dharmanathapurana on the life of the fifteenth Jain Tirthankar, and a poem in eulogy of Gommateshvara of Shravanabelagola. The noted Hazare Rama temple, an excellent example of Deccan architecture was constructed during his rule.

Deva Raya II

Deva Raya II (r. 1425–1446 CE) was an emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire. The greatest of the Sangama dynasty rulers, he was an able administrator, an ambitious warrior and a man of letters. To him goes the credit of authoring well known works in the Kannada language (Sobagina Sone and Amaruka) and in the Sanskrit language (Mahanataka Sudhanidhi). Some of the most noted Kannada poets of the medieval period, such as Chamarasa and Kumara Vyasa gained his patronage. The Sanskrit poet Gunda Dimdima, and the noted Telugu language poet Srinatha whom the king honored with the title Kavisarvabhauma ("Emperor among poets") were in his court. It was an age of development in secular literature as well. The noted South Indian mathematician Parameshvara, from the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics lived in his empire.

According to the historian Sastri, Deva Raya II had the title Gajabetegara, which literally means "Hunter of elephants", an honorific that explained his addiction to hunting elephants or a metaphor referring to his victories against enemies who were "as strong as elephants". Despite some reversals, Deva Raya II extended and held territories up to the Krishna river. According to an account of visiting Persian chronicler Abdur Razzak, Deva Raya II's empire extended from Ceylon to Gulbarga, and Orissa to the Malabar. According to the historians Chopra, Ravindran and Subrahmaniyan, the king maintained a fleet of ships which helped him in his oversees connections. From the account of the contemporary European explorer Nicolo Conti, the king levied tribute on Ceylon, Quilon, Pegu, Pulicat and Tenasserim.