In 1593 the Bijapur Sultan, Ibrahim Adil, invaded Mysore, which then belonged to the Raya, and reduced the place after a three months' siege. In the same year this Sultan's brother, Ismail, who had been kept prisoner at Belgaum, rose against his sovereign and declared himself independent king of the place. He was besieged there by the royal troops' but owing to treachery in the camp they failed to take the place, and the territories in the neighbourhood were for some time a prey to insurrections and disturbances. Eventually they were reduced to submission and the rebel was killed. Contemporaneously with these events, the Hindus again tried to obtain possession of Adoni, but without success;[350] and a war broke out between the rival kingdoms of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. With this period ends abruptly the narrative of Firishtah relating to the Sultans of Bijapur. The Golkonda history[351] appears to differ widely from it, but I have not thought it necessary here to compare the two stories. The history of the seventeenth century in Southern India is one of confusion and disturbance. The different governors became independent. The kings of the decadent empire wasted their wealth and lost their territories, so that at length they held a mere nominal sovereignty, and nothing remained but the shadow of the once great name -- the prestige of family. And yet, even so late as the years 1792 and 1793, I find a loyal Reddi in the south, in recording on copper-plates some grants of land to temples, declaring that he did so by permission of "Venkatapati Maharaya of Vijayanagar;"[352] while I know of eight other grants similarly recognising the old Hindu royal family, which were engraved in the eighteenth century.[353] The Ikkeri or Bednur chiefs styled themselves under-lords of Vijayanagar till 1650.[354] A Vijayanagar viceroy ruled over Mysore till 1610, after which the descendants of the former viceroys became Rajahs in their own right. In Madura and Tanjore the Nayakkas became independent in 1602. All the Muhammadan dynasties in the Dakhan fell under the power of the Mogul emperors of Delhi towards the close of the seventeenth century, and the whole of the south of India soon became practically theirs. But meanwhile another great power had arisen, and at one time threatened to conquer all India. This was the sovereignty of the Mahrattas. Sivaji conquered all the Konkan country by 1673, and four years later he had overthrown the last shreds of Vijayanagar authority in Kurnool, Gingi, and Vellore; while his brother Ekoji had already, in 1674, captured Tanjore, and established a dynasty there which lasted for a century. But with this exception the Mahrattas established no real domination in the extreme south.