[I had
prepared this post for uploading before going into a major surgery to save
whatever sight I was left with in my left eye after a development last year. While awaiting the outcome of the surgery, which
can be known only after several weeks, I had a major shock with my right eye
apparently following suit, but it now appears that the damage is much less than
originally feared despite the highly disturbing nature of the symptoms. I hope to regain a reasonable degree of normalcy
in a couple of months and carry on with my work as usual. I also
hope that one of my major hobbies doesn’t suffer the same fate as the extinct
empire I have written about here.]
Preamble
There is always something poignant about any
civilization that, having had a sustained and glorious past, finds itself
slowly or rapidly on the decline and eventually ends up in ruins, to be
remembered only as a historical curiosity.
This is what any visitor to Rome or Athens is bound to notice, a city
full of relics of a bygone era, punctuated by the rise and fall of a mighty
empire, one of the cradles of ancient civilization. Similar is the case with Hampi in south-central India, once the epicenter of the thriving Vijayanagar Empire, now a heap of ruins
desperately striving to survive even as a tourist attraction under Unesco protection
as a World Heritage Site.
The Vijayanagar Empire, founded on the banks
of the river Tungabhadra in 1336 by
two brothers popularly called Hakka
and Bukka, believed to be commanders
in the army of the Hoysala Empire,
lasted over three hundred years. The
ruins of Hampi are the best known signposts of this empire which reached its
pinnacle of glory during the rule of the great Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529), marked by widespread support to the
arts, architecture, literature, painting and music, and distinguished by the
presence of the legendary Tenali Ramakrishna,
the resident court scholar and wit around whom some of the most illuminating
stories have been woven. The decline of
the empire started after Krishnadevaraya’s glittering reign and the beginning
of its end was marked by the military defeat of its then ruler at the hands of
the marauding Deccan sultanates in 1565.
Despite the efforts of conservation groups bolstered
by Unesco’s support and the archaeology department’s own protective measures,
Hampi generally presents a sorry picture.
Like most of its neighborhood, It is located in a rather desolate
environment in rocky terrain with sparse vegetation, Hospet being the closest
town and well connected to most other places by road and railway. Unfettered illegal mining and quarrying
activity in nearby places, with its massive impact on the district’s ecology as
a whole, is threatening to denude the Hampi ruins further.
I have visited Hampi on numerous occasions;
one of the most memorable was in February 1980 when I watched the great total
solar eclipse on the 16th afternoon
from the nearby Tungabhadra dam site. My
last visit during which the pictures of this album were taken was on a
brilliantly beautiful and sunny day on 28 November 2005.
Hampi, a Heritage
of Ruins
Here is a Google Earth view encompassing most
of the ruins of Hampi spread over quite a large area surrounding the
Tungabhadra River. It requires a whole
day to explore, especially if one takes to doing so by leisurely walk, which is
indeed the best way to see the ruins. By
the way, the description ‘ruins’ is not applicable to all the places and
structures; some of them are in a good state of preservation even now. Most of the places of interest are
concentrated in the lower left quarter of the picture as well as to the right
of the upper part. The pathways are very
clearly identifiable and negotiable.
[As in my previous
albums, all pictures are in high resolution and can be blown up to their full
size by clicking on a picture and opening it in a separate window]
As with most places of historical interest in
the subcontinent, the most glaringly noticeable structure is a temple with its
tall and stately gopuram, the Virupaksha Temple whose complex is
captured in the next picture from the nearby Matunga hill. The desolate
open space in the foreground and the hilly terrain in the background serve to
highlight the overall character of Hampi.
The next picture gives a zoomed-in view of the
Virupaksha temple with its typical Dravidian style architecture. The sculpted figures are best seen in their
rich detail when the picture is blown up to its full size.
The next picture from the Matunga hill shows
two distinctly different types of temples, the traditional type to the far
right and the more prominent one to the left which is reminiscent of the temple
architecture seen in Orissa. They belong
to a small group called the Hemakuta
temples on the Matunga hill. The short
sturdy granite pillar visible in the foreground here is also seen in the first
picture, indicating that they were shot in diametrically different directions.
The next picture shows a short, well
maintained pathway leading up to a temple housing a stone statue of Lord Ganesha housed under a pillared
enclosure. The first of the three
signboards seen on the left, erected by the Archaeology department, shows a map
of Hampi and the second gives a brief description of the idol of Ganesha. The water tank seen to the left of the temple
was being used to water the lawns, a useful device though not a pretty
sight. The well maintained lawn is a
feature repeated in several other places in Hampi.
The stone Ganesha idol, for some obscure
reason called the Sasive Kalu
(mustard Seed) Ganesha, in the pillared enclosure is shown in full in the next
picture. It is at the foot of the Hemakuta hill. Nearby (not shown here) is another large
statue of Ganesha called Kadale Kalu
Ganesha.
The next picture presents the contrasting
views of a well maintained lawn and greenery in the foreground against the
backdrop of a massive rocky structure appearing to be propped up by some huge natural
boulders.
The following picture is a head-on view of the
Virupaksha Temple seen in two earlier pictures.
If Hampi is the epicenter of the Vijayanagar Empire, this temple can be
said to be the epicenter of Hampi. The road leading to it is spoiled by ugly
and disorderly shops and stalls on both sides, something that is inescapable in
most such places in the country and deliberately avoided in this picture.
Slightly out of the way, one of the largest
and best known stone monuments in Hampi is the statue of Ugranarasimha shown in the next picture, with telltale evidence of
some of the destruction wrought on it. I
didn’t find any better shot of this in my album and luckily my presence in it
doesn’t seem to detract too much from this fabled statue. If anything, it serves to highlight the
structure in its true perspective.
One of the more spectacular edifices of nature
in the rock-strewn ruins of the empire is a huge natural archway formed by two
gigantic boulders shown in the following picture.
The next picture is a harmony of contrasts,
with the neat man-made rows of sculptured figures on a stone monument on the
left, nature’s own handiwork in boulders on the right, accentuated by the
beautiful lawn in the foreground against clear blue skies in the background.
Hampi is replete with numerous robust stone
pillared enclosures housing a variety of objects and open on all four sides,
presumably to let in both light and air in plenty. Here is one such structure in all its raw
splendor. Incidentally, the place is
oppressively hot during summer.
Despite the rather poor condition in which one
finds it, the Lotus Mahal is one of
the most mesmerizing and beautiful structures in Hampi, indeed of any place in
the country I have visited. Here is a
view of it amidst picturesque greenery and appearing to be shepherded by two
great trees.
Another impressive structure despite its worn
out condition is the Elephant stables shown in the next picture. While the sign board is welcome, the partial,
haphazard, ugly and mindless fencing in front of it is not only totally
unnecessary, but also a downright insult to one’s aesthetic sense.
The following building with some impressive
greenery and lawn on its front lies perpendicular to and to the right of the
elephant stables.
The next picture features a subsurface rain
water storage tank with some incredibly ornate and beautiful inverted pyramidal
and tiered steps. What makes it so very
attractive is perhaps the symmetric stone steps laid out with such pleasing
symmetry. Observe an aqueduct running
perpendicular to it on the ground at left and a large stretch of lawn behind
the tank. Observe also the stone-walled
boundary and the rocky ruins beyond.
The next picture shows a large pyramidal three
tiered platform, called Mahanavami Dibba,
rising to a height of about 8 meters, with each tier of the platform adorned
with sculptured figures in the characteristic style of Vijayanaagar
architecture. In the hay days of the
empire it was being used for important public occasions involving royalty.
The next picture takes the viewer close to the
Tungabhadra River and the large stone pillared Purandara Mantapa on its southern banks. The view of the surroundings from here is a
strange mix of serenity and ruggedness, the latter marked by the huge rocky
hill in the distance and the boulders on the other side of the river. The picture shows a few people putting the
river waters to some very mundane use, unimpressed by the historic importance
of the locale.
The Vittala Temple Complex
The quadrangle seen prominently at the top
right of the Google Earth map houses the Vittala
Temple complex, whose architectural style is characteristically different
from the rest at Hampi, closer to the Hoysala
style seen in temple complexes like Belur and Halebid, but with open sides. This is easily the most impressive sight in
Hampi and worth all the effort to reach it at its rather distant location from
the rest of the ruins. Here is a picture
of the temple with the fabled monolithic stone chariot in the foreground. The chariot has some resemblance to the one
in Konark in Orissa, but much smaller
and not quite so impressive.
The following picture shows a different and a
vastly more impressive view of the temple. The intricate stone carvings,
particularly on the clustered pillars, are breathtakingly beautiful. The smaller pillars in each of the clusters
produce a distinctive musical note characteristic of a popular musical
instrument when struck with any hard substance such as a piece of stone.
I sign off with my last picture of this album,
set in the Vittala temple complex, where for once nature takes precedence over
human handiwork. The center of
attraction here is surely the magnificent tree, with its grotesquely twisted
root and branches, giving an overall impression of awe and splendor very much
in consonance with the resplendent ruins of the extinct empire. I don’t think it is anywhere nearly as old as
the principal architectural splendors of Hampi, but looks capable of surviving
longer than the empire itself did.
