In 1565, not a man to be easily fooled by his treacherous Muslim commanders, the de-facto King of the Vijayanagar Empire (flag pictured) Aliya Rama Raya summarily dismissed the Gilani brothers before defeating the Deccan Sultanate Army in a mighty battle fought in northern Karnataka, about eighty kilometres to the southeast of the city of Bijapur.

Hindu Victory at the Battle of TalikotaAfter the death of his predecessor King Achyuta Raya, the Sultanates had decided to unite and destroy the Vijayanagara Empire, the last great Hindu kingdom in South India. Inter-family marriages between the Sultans solved many of their internal conflicts and they finally united against their common enemy. As a result, the Deccan kings mustered a grand total of eighty thousand infantry and thirty thousand cavalry. Vijayanagara, on the other hand, had one hundred and forty thousand foot soldiers, with another ten thousand on horseback. The armies also had large numbers of war elephants.

The Battle was fiercely fought and the margin of victory was minimal. For the time being at least, this great Hindu victory had curtailed the Islamic conquest of the subcontinent.