Sources of Vijayanagar History

The history of the empire of Vijayanagar which till recently was as good as lost to us was recovered through the efforts of Mr. R. Sewell whose work in South Indian Archaeology and Epigraphy naturally gave him the qualifications to take up the work. He brought out his work A Forgotten Empire of Vijayanagarearly in 1900 based upon his previous knowledge of the antiquities of the Madras Presidency and of the information he derived from two Portuguese chronicles which were unearthed in the archives of Lisbon and which he translated and appended to his work. Excellent as the work was for the time and for the sources and historical material at his disposal it suffered from the neglect of the evidence available in various forms in literature which go a long way towards filling up the many gaps that Epigraphy leaves in respect of that history. These sources are collected together in the following pages and they will speak for themselves. A constructive study of these goes a long way in correcting the chronicles in many places and conveys information which would make a fuller history of the Empire of Vijayanagar possible.