Vijaynagara is a ruined city in southern India. It was the capital of the Vijaynagara Empire, which arose in the fourteenth century in response to invasions of the south by Muslim states based in the north, especially the Sultante of Delhi. The origins of the empire are obscure, and authorities do not agree on where the first rulers came from. These were Harihara I, who assumed the title of emperor in 1336, and his brother Bukka Raya I, founders of the Sangama Dynasty. One theory is that they were generals from one of the states that had recently been destroyed by Muslim attacks.
All the accounts agree that a certain Hindu saint, known as Vidyaranya, had a major part in inspiring the Sangamas to take up the leadership of the anti-Muslim cause. This origin in religious warfare still resonates in modern India. The temples of Vijaynagara are places of Hindu pilgrimage, and one set of photographs of the site I found online is dedicated "to the lives of those who died fighting for India's independence."
Vidyaranya seems like an interesting character. Besides his duties as royal adviser he was the author of an encyclopedic work called the
Sarva-darśana-saṅ̇graha or
Compendium of Speculations, which summarizes the main points of 16 different philosophical schools. Vidyaranya presents the schools as mutually contradictory, but he once described himself as an adherent of all sixteen at once. Above is the most famous of the still functioning temples at the site, the Virupaksha Temple.
Vijaynagara -- City of Victory -- grew to be a huge place, a vast series of interconnected temples, fortresses, palaces and commercial districts covering 250 square miles (650 square km); Indian historians say that in 1500 it was the second largest city in the world. Portuguese visitors were astounded, and their accounts widely disbelieved in Europe. Above are the elephant stables.
This is the King's Balance. According to local folklore, a beam was set across this with the king on one end and a basket on the other. The king' servants would fill the basket with gold, silver and gems until the weight balanced out his own, and he would then distribute the treasure to various temples and monasteries as alms. I have no idea if this is true, or plausible. Can any of my Indian readers help out here?
In 1565 the city was sacked by the armies of the Deccan Sultanates, five Muslim states that normally warred against each other but came together for a great battle against Vijaynagara. The city then declined, and by 1800 it had nearly disappeared. Now a modern town has grown up around the pilgrimage hostels, known as Hampi.
Stone chariot in the temple complex.
Jain temple.
Lotus temple.
Frieze in the temple complex.
A marketplace. This is a place I would love to explore.
5I visited during the time I was in graduate school in England.
ReplyDeleteIt was truly fabulous. There were market stalls built into the original bazaar--the sense of today's folk making use of the past's architecture was... just amazing.
You are lacking the pictures of the amazing river that runs past the site. Some of the most wonderful naturally formed rocks, a ruined stone bridge... There is a banana plantation separating two of the main areas, and walking through this jungle-feeling area to get from one end of the complex to the other--makes the experience all the more intense.
Not to mention the stone temples up on the rocky ridges around you. Spectacular. I was in India on that occasion to attend a friend's wedding--and it was a series of photos in the paper of those temples that led me on the overnight train journey (complete with bandit bars on the windows) out and back to visit this place.