Deva Raya II is widely regarded as the most capable ruler of the Sangama dynasty, and his twenty-year reign saw Vijayanagara reach its greatest territorial extent before the empire's later Tuluva resurgence under Krishnadevaraya. He recruited Muslim cavalry archers and Turkic mercenaries into the imperial army — a pragmatic military reform that contemporaries noted with some surprise — and repelled repeated Bahmani Sultanate incursions into the Deccan. Copper jitals of this period circulated heavily in local markets and temple economies across the Karnataka plateau.
Deva Raya II is widely regarded as the most capable ruler of the Sangama dynasty, and his twenty-year reign saw Vijayanagara reach its greatest territorial extent before the empire's later Tuluva resurgence under Krishnadevaraya. He recruited Muslim cavalry archers and Turkic mercenaries into the imperial army — a pragmatic military reform that contemporaries noted with some surprise — and repelled repeated Bahmani Sultanate incursions into the Deccan. Copper jitals of this period circulated heavily in local markets and temple economies across the Karnataka plateau.