Vijayanagara's Devaraya II Crowned

1430

The Karnataka emperor inherited South India's largest Hindu state and, pragmatically, hired Turkic archers and taught his Hindu cavalry to use stirrups the way their Deccan enemies did. His court at Hampi became a laboratory of military and cultural fusion, its temples still half-standing in pink granite ruin. The Persian traveler Abdur Razzaq described Hampi as a city of astonishing wealth, its bazaars stretching for miles.