of Orissa to a rebellious feudatory of Golconda. The large forces of the Hindus were routed by the fanatical courage of the Musalmans, who took Kondapalle and won a battle in the neighbourhood of Rajahmundry. The king of Orissa sued for peace, and consented to surrender to Golconda the whole of the territory between the Kistna and Gódávari rivers.
Meanwhile domestic revolutions had weakened the kingdom of Orissa. Two sons of Pratápa Rudra succeeded him one after the other, and ruled for a year or two till they were both murdered in 1541-42 by a minister named Góvinda Déva, who took the kingdom for himself.*[1] He and his sons ruled till 1559-60, when a Telugu named Harichandana raised a revolt, killed two of the sons of the usurper, and himself ruled till 1571, when the kingdom fell finally into the hands of the Muhammadan kings of Golconda.
This conquest had not been effected without severe fighting. The Hindu Rája of Kondavíd attacked the Musalman garrison of Kondapalle, and the chief of Rajahmundry, one Vidíadri, who was apparently†[2] a prince of the house of Orissa, laid siege to Ellore, which was also held by the Muhammadans. The latter was signally defeated and fled to Rajahmundry. The Golconda troops laid waste the country round that town and were then called away (1564) to assist the other Musalman kings of the Deccan in the joint attack on Vijayanagar which resulted in the overthrow of that empire in the great battle of Talikóta, north of the Kistna river, in 1565. That decisive campaign won, Golconda's conquest of Gódávari soon recommenced. The forts of Peddápuram and Rájánagaram (from which reinforcements and provisions were being sent to Rajahmundry) were first taken, the latter with difficulty because of the narrowness of the paths and the thickness of the jungles which had to be traversed. Rajahmundry was then attacked. The Hindus were defeated in a desperate battle outside the walls (though they broke the left wing of the invader's army) and the fort was then invested for four months, when it surrendered. This took place in 1571-72. The Muhammadans then marched north, reducing the fortified places on the way, and finally conquered all the country of Orissa as far as Chicacole in Ganjám.
Their control of their new possessions was apparently far from firm, and disorders and outbreaks were continual. The Reddis of the hills, for example, plundered Ellore and
