sentences:  The oppression was also felt in the eastern peninsula as far as the Gajapati Kingdom where, for instance in 1478, Muhammad Shah III Lashkari (1463–1482) demolished the Great Temple of Kondavidu and was acclaimed as a "ghazi", for personally decapitating all the Brahmins.Such excesses induced Brahmins to seek refuge in the realms of Vijayanagar, where many were appointed "karnams" (bailiffs) in preference to other castes, from the reign of Harihara I (1336–1357) onward.After the division of the Bahmani Sultanate in 1490, into the Sultanates of Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar and Berar, the armies of Vijayanagar were successful in fending of invasions and restricting the Sultanates to Central India, especially in the reign of Krishnadeva Raya (1509–1529), who also began the practice of appointing Brahmins commanders of strategically important forts.