About: Tamil Nadu under the Vijayanagar Empire

The extension of the Vijayanagara Empire into the Tamil country began with the southern inroads made by Sangama kings between 1356 and 1378 after defeating the Padaivedu Kingdom. With the destruction of the Madurai Sultanate in 1377-78, most of the present-day Tamil Nadu eventually came under the rule of the Vijayanagara Empire. While the rulers of Vijayanagara primarily patronised works of Kannada and Sanskrit, they did not express much interest in Tamil poetry. Krishnadevaraya is known to have only patronised the Tamil poet Harihara, who wrote the Irusamaya vilakkam (An exposition on Shaivism and Vaishnavism). For 300 years Tamils were ruled under the Kannadigas. The Vijayanagara Empire's hold over the Tamil country collapsed in the mid 16th century as the kingdom itself disintegrated in