1530, and Sadasiva succeeded Achyuta in 1542. The latter was virtually
a prisoner in the hands of Rama Raya, the eldest of three brothers, at
first nominally his minister, but afterwards independent. The names of
the other brothers were Tirumala and Venkatadri. These three men held
the government of the kingdom till 1565, when the empire was utterly
overthrown by a confederation of the five Muhammadan kings of the
Dakhan, already mentioned, at the battle of Talikota -- so-called --
and the magnificent capital was almost wiped out of existence.

With these few facts to guide us, we turn to the chronicles of Nuniz
and Firishtah, trying in vain to obtain some points of contact
between them as to the origin of the second dynasty -- some clue
which will enable us to reconcile differences and arrive at the real
truth. If we are to be guided purely by probabilities, it would seem
that the history given by Nuniz is likely to be the more accurate of
the two. His chronicle was written about the year 1535, during the
reign of Achyuta; he lived at the Hindu capital itself, and he gained
his information from Hindu sources not long subsequent to the events
related. Firishtah did not write till about A.D. 1607, was not in any
sense a contemporary recorder, and did not live amongst the Hindus,
but at the court of Nizam Shah at Ahmadnagar. The lengths of reigns,
however, as given by Nuniz do not tally with the dates which we obtain
from sources undoubtedly reliable.

Nuniz has it that Virupaksha's son "Padearao," the last of the old
line, fled from the capital when the usurper Narasimha seized the
throne; that the latter reigned forty-four years, and died leaving
two sons. These youths being too young to govern, the dying king
intrusted the kingdom to his minister, Narasa Naik, and both the
princes were murdered. Narasa seized the throne, and held it till his