Coins
with legend sri ramga were attributed to Sri ranga raya III by K. Ganesh and
Girijapathy.
Sriranga III (1642–1678 CE) of the Aravidu Dynasty was the last ruler of the
Vijayanagara Empire, who came to power in 1642 following the death of his uncle
Venkata III. He was also a great grandson of Aliya Rama Raya.
The coins of srirangaraya have the subject on the obverse and the legend - "Sri ram ga" in Kannada/Telugu.
Before
his accession to the throne, Sriranga III was in rebellion against his uncle
Venkata III. He sought help from the Bijapur Sultan and attacked Venkata III in
Chandragiri – Vellore in 1638.
Sriranga
III spent his last years under support of one of his vassal chieftains,
Shivappa Nayaka of Ikkeri, and was still hoping to retrieve Vellore from the
Muslim forces. Thirumalai Nayak's treachery to Sriranga III made the Mysore
ruler Kanthirava Narasa wage a series of ravaging wars with Madurai, later
capturing the territories of Coimbatore and Salem, regions which were retained
by Mysore till 1800.
The
Mysore ruler Kanthirava Narasa still recognized Sriranga as a namesake emperor.
Sriranga died in 1678 as an emperor without an empire, putting an end to over
three centuries of Vijayanagara rule in India.
