Mallikarjuna Raya succeeded his father Emperor Deva Raya II, who had brought prosperity throughout the Vijayanagara empire as well as a golden age for the Sangama Dynasty.
However, unlike his father, Mallikarjuna was a weak and corrupt ruler[citation needed].
At the beginning of his reign, he successfully defended the empire against invasions by the Turko-Persian Bahmani Sultanate and the Gajapati Empire, which then stretched from the Ganges to the Kaveri, but thereafter his reign was marked by a string of defeats.
These events eventually led to the decline of the Sangama Dynasty; Mallikarjuna Raya's nephew Virupaksha Raya II took the opportunity to seize the throne, though he failed to prove a better ruler.
This biography of a member of an Indian royal house is a stub.