In 1336 A.D., who founded the Vijayanagar Empire?
- (a)Ramrai
- (b)Krishnadev Rai
- (c)Harihar and Bukka
- (d)Acyut Rai
Correct — C, Harihar and Bukka.
Harihar and Bukka, sons of Sangama, established the city and kingdom of Vijayanagara in 1336 on the southern bank of the Tungabhadra, at the site whose ruins survive at Hampi in present-day Karnataka.
Because their father was Sangama, the line they began is called the Sangama dynasty. Tradition connects the founding with the guidance of the sage Vidyaranya, and early references to the settlement use the name Vidyanagara.
The idea to carry away: the founders open a four-dynasty sequence — Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva, Aravidu — and the empire's better-remembered rulers belong to its later stretches, not to 1336.
- (a)Ramrai — Rama Raya is the right answer to who led Vijayanagara at the Battle of Talikota in 1565, where the allied Deccan sultanates defeated the empire, he was killed, and the capital was sacked.
He belonged to the Aravidu family, the last of the four houses. His moment is the empire's closing chapter, more than two centuries after its founding.
- (b)Krishnadev Rai — Krishnadevaraya is the right answer to which Vijayanagara ruler reigned at the empire's height, from 1509 to 1529. He belonged to the Tuluva dynasty and wrote the Telugu poem Amuktamalyada.
Fame is not priority. His accession comes nearly two centuries after 1336, and by then the throne had already passed out of the founders' Sangama line into the Saluva and then the Tuluva house.
- (d)Acyut Rai — Achyuta Deva Raya is the right answer to who succeeded Krishnadevaraya on the Vijayanagara throne in 1529. He too was a ruler of the Tuluva dynasty.
He therefore sits later still than Krishnadevaraya on the same timeline, which places him well after the founding.
A dynasty question has two separate axes: who began the line, and who made it famous. Vijayanagara separates them cleanly.
The empire was begun in 1336 by two brothers, Harihara and Bukka. Their father's name, Sangama, supplies the label for the first dynasty — a naming habit worth noticing, since the founders' own names do not become the dynasty's name.
Power afterwards passed through three further houses — Saluva, Tuluva and Aravidu — so any Vijayanagara name has to be located on that sequence before it can be judged as a candidate for founder.
The founding of Vijayanagara in 1336 belongs to the reordering of the Deccan after the Delhi Sultanate's southern campaigns. The Bahmani Sultanate was founded to its north in 1347, and the two powers contested the fertile Raichur doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra for generations.
Vijayanagara anchors much of medieval South Indian history: the temple city at Hampi, patronage of Telugu and Kannada literature, the amara-nayaka arrangement for holding territory, and the foreign travellers' descriptions of its markets and wealth all hang off this starting point.
- Vijayanagara was founded in 1336 on the southern bank of the Tungabhadra; its ruins at Hampi in Karnataka are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Harihara and Bukka were sons of Sangama, and the dynasty they began takes its name from their father.
- Four dynasties ruled Vijayanagara in this order: Sangama, Saluva, Tuluva, Aravidu.
- Krishnadevaraya of the Tuluva dynasty ruled from 1509 to 1529 and composed the Telugu work Amuktamalyada.
- Achyuta Deva Raya succeeded Krishnadevaraya in 1529.
- Rama Raya, of the Aravidu family, was killed at the Battle of Talikota in 1565, after which the capital was sacked.
- The Bahmani Sultanate, Vijayanagara's northern rival, was founded in 1347 by Alauddin Bahman Shah.
- The Persian envoy Abdur Razzaq visited Vijayanagara in the 1440s, during the reign of Deva Raya II.
The founders open the sequence in 1336; the other three names belong to the empire's later Tuluva and Aravidu stretches.
- Reaching for the most celebrated ruler when the question asks for the founder — Krishnadevaraya's reign is 1509 to 1529, not 1336.
- Treating the ending 'Raya' or 'Rai' as a sign of primacy; it marks a Vijayanagara sovereign whatever the date.
- Naming the dynasty after the founders instead of after their father — the line is Sangama, not Harihara.
- Swapping 1336, the founding of Vijayanagara, with 1347, the founding of the Bahmani Sultanate.
- Treating Hampi and Vijayanagara as two different places; Hampi is the site of the capital.
This idea appears as a direct name-and-year identification, and also inside chronology or pairing items that ask which dynasty a named ruler belonged to, or which ruler followed whom.
The options here are drawn from the same empire, so the sorting work is chronological rather than topical: fix 1336 to the founders, then place the rest of the Vijayanagara names after it.
UPSC_2006_GS1_Q1272006Same empire, opposite end of its chronology. That item asks who occupied the Vijayanagara throne when Raja Wodeyar founded Mysore — a late ruler — while this one asks who began the empire in 1336. Both reward holding the dynastic sequence in order rather than a single famous name.
NDA_GAT_2025_II_Q232025Same subject, different device. The NDA item is a sentence-rearrangement built around Vijayanagara's extent up to the Krishna and the survival of Hampi's memory; it tests description and sequencing of a passage, not the identification of a founder or a date.
UKPSC_2012_MAINS_PaperII_Q202012Same empire in the same commission's papers, but a descriptive demand: it asks for the economic condition of Vijayanagara, which needs trade, agriculture, revenue and travellers' accounts. This prelims item needs only the founders and the year, so the shared ground is the topic, not the depth.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Harihara and Bukka, the founders of the Vijayanagara Empire, began which dynasty?
- (a)Sangama
- (b)Saluva
- (c)Tuluva
- (d)Aravidu
Answera — Sangama. The two brothers were sons of Sangama, and the first Vijayanagara dynasty carries his name.Saluva began later, with Saluva Narasimha's seizure of power in 1485. Tuluva is the house of Krishnadevaraya and Achyuta Deva Raya. Aravidu, the last house, is the family of Rama Raya. None of these three stands at the empire's beginning.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire stood on the bank of which river?
- (a)Krishna
- (b)Godavari
- (c)Tungabhadra
- (d)Kaveri
Answerc — Tungabhadra. The city was founded on its southern bank in 1336, and the ruins at Hampi still line that river.The Krishna marked the empire's northern reach at its height but not the capital's site. The Godavari lay north of the empire's core. The Kaveri flows through the southern country the empire came to hold, far from Hampi.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Battle of Talikota, in which Vijayanagara was defeated by an alliance of Deccan sultanates, was fought in the year
- (a)1336
- (b)1347
- (c)1520
- (d)1565
Answerd — 1565. Rama Raya was killed in this battle and the capital was sacked soon after.1336 is the founding of Vijayanagara itself. 1347 is the founding of the Bahmani Sultanate to its north. 1520 is the year of Krishnadevaraya's victory at Raichur over Bijapur, a Vijayanagara success rather than its defeat.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Telugu work Amuktamalyada is attributed to
- (a)Allasani Peddana
- (b)Krishnadevaraya
- (c)Harihara I
- (d)Achyuta Deva Raya
Answerb — Krishnadevaraya. The Tuluva ruler who reigned from 1509 to 1529 is credited with this Telugu poem.Allasani Peddana, a poet at his court, is the author of Manucharitamu, a separate Telugu work.
Harihara I is remembered as a founder of the empire in 1336, and Achyuta Deva Raya as the ruler who succeeded Krishnadevaraya in 1529; their names attach to those events rather than to this poem.