An Imperial Capital

Vijayanagara (‘city of victory’) was the name of both a city and an empire. Founded in the 14th century, the empire at its height stretched from the river Krishna to the extreme south of the peninsula. In 1565 the city was sacked and soon deserted; it fell into ruin in the 17th–18th centuries but lived on in the memory of people in the Krishna–Tungabhadra doab, who called it Hampi, after the local mother goddess Pampadevi. Oral traditions, archaeology, monuments and inscriptions together allowed scholars to rediscover it. This chapter is unusual: it is built around buildings, plans and elevations, teaching you to read architecture as historical evidence.

• Links: lehs201 (Abdur Razzaq and Nikitin as travellers); lehs202 (bhakti temples, the Virashaivas of Karnataka; the Vitthala of Pandharpur); lehs204 and the Mughal chapters (the iqta–jagir background; the Sultanates and Mughals); Themes I, Theme 4 (temple architecture from garbhagriha to gopuram). Class 7 Our Pasts II introduces Vijayanagara and the Bahmanis.
• UPSC: Prelims asks about dynasties and successions, Krishnadeva Raya, amaram, Talikota, Hampi’s temples (Virupaksha, Vitthala), kalyana mandapas, water works, Nuniz and the travellers; GS1 Mains asked about Krishnadeva Raya as scholar and patron (2016) and Vijayanagara architecture (2026).

• Vijayanagara (‘city of victory’), founded 1336 by Harihara and Bukka; contemporaries called it karnataka samrajyamu; ruins remembered as Hampi (from Pampadevi); Mackenzie’s survey 1800.
• Dynasties: Sangama (to 1485) → Saluva (to 1503) → Tuluva (Krishnadeva Raya, 1509–29) → Aravidu (from 1542; Penukonda, Chandragiri). 1565: Rakshasi-Tangadi (Talikota) — Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda defeat Rama Raya.
• Horse trade (Arab traders, kudirai chettis; Portuguese from 1498); Krishnadeva Raya’s Amuktamalyada (Telugu) on encouraging traders.
• Amara-nayaka system (probably drawing on the iqta): commanders govern territories, keep troops, fund temples and irrigation, send tribute; 17th-century nayakas became independent.
• City: Tungabhadra basin; Kamalapuram tank, Hiriya canal; walls enclosing fields (Abdur Razzaq’s ‘seven lines’); urban core; royal centre (mahanavami dibba, Lotus Mahal, ‘elephant stables’, Hazara Rama).
• Sacred centre: Virupaksha (orders signed ‘Shri Virupaksha’; title ‘Hindu Suratrana’), raya gopurams, mandapas, kalyana mandapas, Vitthala temple’s stone chariot, chariot streets lined with shops.

The ruins were brought to light in 1800 by Colonel Colin Mackenzie, an engineer and antiquarian employed by the English East India Company, who prepared the first survey map of the site. Much of his initial information came from the memories of priests of the Virupaksha temple and the Pampadevi shrine. From 1856 photographers recorded the monuments; as early as 1836 epigraphists began collecting dozens of inscriptions from Hampi’s temples. Historians collated these with foreign travellers’ accounts and literature in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit.

According to tradition and inscriptions, the brothers Harihara and Bukka founded the empire in 1336. It included peoples of different languages and religious traditions. On the northern frontier the kings competed with the Sultans of the Deccan and the Gajapati rulers of Orissa for fertile river valleys and overseas trade — and these interactions also spread ideas, especially in architecture; the rayas borrowed concepts and techniques and developed them further. The empire included areas where the Cholas (Tamil Nadu) and Hoysalas (Karnataka) had patronised elaborate temples, such as the Brihadishvara at Thanjavur and the Chennakeshava at Belur; the rayas built on these traditions and carried them ‘literally to new heights’.

Kings and traders. Warfare depended on cavalry, so importing horses from Arabia and Central Asia was vital. The trade was first controlled by Arab traders; local merchants, the kudirai chettis (horse merchants), also took part. From 1498 the Portuguese arrived on the west coast, setting up trading and military stations; their superior military technology, especially muskets, made them important players. Vijayanagara was also known for markets in spices, textiles and precious stones; trade was a status symbol, and its revenue contributed significantly to the state.

Apogee and decline. Claimants to power included members of the ruling lineage and military commanders. The Sangama dynasty ruled until 1485; the Saluvas, military commanders, until 1503; then the Tuluvas, to whom Krishnadeva Raya belonged. His reign brought expansion and consolidation: the Raichur doab between the Tungabhadra and Krishna was acquired (1512), the rulers of Orissa subdued (1514) and severe defeats inflicted on the Sultan of Bijapur (1520). Though always militarily prepared, the kingdom flourished in ‘unparalleled peace and prosperity’. He is credited with fine temples and impressive gopurams added to many south Indian temples, and founded the suburb of Nagalapuram, named after his mother. After his death in 1529, rebellious nayakas troubled his successors; by 1542 power shifted to the Aravidu lineage, which ruled until the end of the 17th century. Shifting alignments between Vijayanagara and the Sultanates finally produced an alliance of Sultanates: in 1565 the chief minister Rama Raya led the army at Rakshasi-Tangadi (Talikota) and was routed by the combined armies of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda; the city was sacked and abandoned within a few years. The empire’s focus moved east, to Penukonda and later Chandragiri (near Tirupati).

Not always enemies. Although the Sultans’ armies destroyed the city, relations between rayas and Sultans were not always or inevitably hostile, despite religious differences. Krishnadeva Raya supported some claimants in the Sultanates and took pride in the title ‘establisher of the Yavana kingdom’; the Sultan of Bijapur intervened to settle succession disputes in Vijayanagara after his death. Each side was keen on the other’s stability. It was Rama Raya’s adventurous policy of playing one Sultan against another that led them to combine and defeat him.

Power was shared with military chiefs who controlled forts and armed supporters, often moving from area to area with peasants seeking fertile land. These nayakas usually spoke Telugu or Kannada; many submitted to the rayas but often rebelled and had to be subdued. The amara-nayaka system was a major political innovation, likely deriving many features from the iqta system of the Delhi Sultanate. Amara-nayakas were commanders given territories to govern; they collected taxes and dues from peasants, craftspersons and traders, kept part for personal use and to maintain a stipulated contingent of horses and elephants, and used some for temples and irrigation. They sent annual tribute and appeared personally at court with gifts; kings sometimes asserted control by transferring them. In the 17th century many nayakas founded independent kingdoms, hastening the empire’s collapse.

Water. The site is a natural basin of the Tungabhadra, which flows north-east, ringed by granite hills from which streams flow to the river; embankments along these created reservoirs. As one of the most arid zones of the peninsula, it needed elaborate storage. The most important tank, built in the early 15th century, is now called Kamalapuram tank; it irrigated nearby fields and fed a channel to the royal centre. The Hiriya canal drew water from a dam across the Tungabhadra to irrigate the valley separating the sacred centre from the urban core — apparently built by Sangama kings.

Fortifications. Abdur Razzaq, ambassador to Calicut in the 15th century, was impressed by seven lines of forts, encircling not only the city but its agricultural hinterland and forests. The outermost wall linked the surrounding hills. The masonry was slightly tapered, used no mortar; wedge-shaped stones held themselves in place; the inner part was earth packed with rubble; square or rectangular bastions projected outwards. Most significant: it enclosed farmland — Abdur Razzaq noted fields, gardens and houses between the first, second and third walls, and Paes described rice fields, gardens and water from two lakes between the first circuit and the city — confirmed by archaeologists, who also found an agricultural tract between the sacred centre and urban core, served by canals. A second line went round the urban core and a third round the royal centre, within which each set of major buildings had its own high walls.

Gates and roads. Well-guarded gates linked the fort to major roads; gateways often defined the structures they controlled. The arch on the gateway into the fortified settlement and the dome over it are typical of architecture introduced by the Turkish Sultans, called Indo-Islamic because it grew through interaction with local building practices. Archaeologists traced roads through gateways and paving finds; roads wound through valleys avoiding rocks; the most important ran from temple gateways and were lined by bazaars.

The urban core. There is little archaeological evidence of ordinary houses. Fine Chinese porcelain found in some areas, including the north-eastern urban core, suggests rich traders; this was also the Muslim residential quarter, whose tombs and mosques have distinct functions but architecture resembling the mandapas of Hampi’s temples. Barbosa described ordinary houses — now vanished — as thatched but well built, arranged by occupation in long streets with open places. Field surveys show many shrines and small temples (a variety of cults, perhaps of different communities), and wells, rainwater tanks and temple tanks serving town dwellers.

The royal centre lay in the south-western part of the settlement. It included over 60 temples — showing how rulers sought legitimacy through association with deities — and about thirty complexes identified as palaces, large structures apparently without ritual functions. Temples were built entirely of masonry; secular buildings had superstructures of perishable materials.

The mahanavami dibba. Structures have been named by form and presumed function. The ‘king’s palace’, the largest enclosure, has not yielded definitive evidence of royal residence. It has two impressive platforms, the ‘audience hall’ — a high platform with closely spaced slots for wooden pillars and a staircase to a second floor (so closely spaced that its use is unclear) — and the ‘mahanavami dibba’, on one of the highest points in the city: a massive platform rising from a base of about 11,000 sq ft to 40 ft, once supporting a wooden structure, its base covered with relief carvings. Rituals probably coincided with Mahanavami, the great ninth day of the ten-day autumn festival (Dusehra in the north, Durga Puja in Bengal, Navaratri or Mahanavami in the peninsula). Kings displayed prestige, power and suzerainty: worship of the image and of the state horse, sacrifice of buffaloes and other animals, dances, wrestling, processions of horses, elephants, chariots and soldiers, and ritual presentations by chief nayakas and subordinate kings; on the last day the king inspected his army and the nayakas’ armies in an open field, and nayakas brought gifts and the stipulated tribute. Was today’s dibba the centre of all this? Scholars note the surrounding space seems too small for such processions — it remains an enigma.

Other buildings. The Lotus Mahal, named by 19th-century British travellers, is one of the most beautiful buildings; its use is uncertain — a map by Mackenzie suggests a council chamber. The Hazara Rama temple, probably for the king and family only, has lost its central images, but panels survive, including Ramayana scenes on the inner shrine walls. Many structures were destroyed in the sack, but nayakas continued the palatial building traditions, and many of their buildings survive.

Choosing a capital. At the rocky northern end, by the Tungabhadra, local tradition placed the monkey kingdom of Vali and Sugriva of the Ramayana; others say Pampadevi did penance here to marry Virupaksha, guardian deity of the kingdom and a form of Shiva — a marriage still celebrated each year in the Virupaksha temple. Pre-Vijayanagara Jaina temples also stand among these hills: the area held several sacred traditions. Temple building had a long history here (Pallavas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Cholas); rulers built temples to associate themselves with the divine, and temples were centres of learning and, through land grants, of economic life. The very choice of site was probably inspired by the shrines of Virupaksha and Pampadevi. The kings claimed to rule on behalf of Virupaksha; all royal orders were signed ‘Shri Virupaksha’, usually in Kannada script. They also used the title ‘Hindu Suratrana’, a Sanskritisation of the Arabic Sultan. They innovated too: royal portrait sculpture was displayed in temples, and royal temple visits became state occasions attended by important nayakas.

Gopurams and mandapas. New features included structures of immense scale, above all the raya gopurams — royal gateways that often dwarfed the towers on the central shrines, visible from afar and reminders of the king’s power to command resources and skills — and mandapas (pavilions) and long pillared corridors around the shrines. The Virupaksha temple was built over centuries: inscriptions suggest its earliest shrine dates to the 9th–10th centuries; it was greatly enlarged under Vijayanagara. Krishnadeva Raya built the hall in front of the main shrine, with delicately carved pillars, to mark his accession, and is credited with the eastern gopuram; the central shrine came to occupy a relatively small part of the complex. Halls served many purposes: images placed to witness music, dance and drama, divine weddings, and swings for deities, using special images distinct from those in the shrine.

The Vitthala temple. Its principal deity, Vitthala, is a form of Vishnu generally worshipped in Maharashtra — introducing it in Karnataka shows how the rulers drew on different traditions to create an imperial culture. It has several halls and a unique shrine designed as a chariot. Temple complexes had chariot streets running straight from the gopuram, paved with stone and lined with pillared pavilions where merchants set up shops. The nayakas continued and elaborated these traditions; some of the most spectacular gopurams were built by them.

After Mackenzie, information came from travellers and inscriptions. Through the 20th century the Archaeological Survey of India and the Karnataka Department of Archaeology and Museums preserved the site; in 1976 Hampi became a site of national importance; in the early 1980s a project began to document the remains through extensive and intensive surveys, with dozens of scholars over nearly twenty years. Mapping: the area was divided into 25 squares, each with a letter; each was subdivided into smaller squares, and those again into smaller units. Thousands of structures — from tiny shrines and houses to temples — and traces of roads, paths and bazaars (found through pillar bases and platforms) were recorded. As John M. Fritz, George Michell and M.S. Nagaraja Rao wrote, we must imagine a series of vanished wooden elements — columns, brackets, beams, ceilings, eaves, towers — plastered and perhaps brightly painted; travellers’ descriptions help reconstruct the life that has gone.

What buildings can and cannot tell. Buildings show how space was organised and used, how it was built, defence needs, the spread of ideas through comparison, and the ideas patrons wished to project — understood fully only with literature, inscriptions and popular traditions. They do not tell us what ordinary men, women and children thought: did they enter the royal or sacred centres? Did they study the sculpture? What did the workers think? Who planned the buildings? Where did masons, stonecutters and sculptors come from — were some captured in war? What were their wages? Who supervised, and how was material transported? Buildings alone cannot answer.

Q1–5: 100–150 words. Q6–9: short essays of 250–300 words. Try each first.

Numbers

One-liners

• Vijayanagara = city and empire; Hampi = local name from Pampadevi.
• Sangama → Saluva → Tuluva (Krishnadeva Raya) → Aravidu.
• Amuktamalyada: Telugu statecraft by Krishnadeva Raya — welcome horse and elephant traders.
• Amara-nayakas: territory, troops, temples and irrigation, tribute; later independent.
• Walls enclosed fields — protect the food supply against sieges.
• Three zones: sacred centre (north), urban core, royal centre (south-west).
• Mahanavami dibba: platform for a festival of royal power — probably.
• Rayas ruled for Virupaksha: orders signed ‘Shri Virupaksha’; title ‘Hindu Suratrana’.
• Raya gopurams dwarf the shrine; kalyana mandapas; Vitthala’s stone chariot.
• Buildings tell patrons’ intentions, not ordinary people’s views.

Traps to avoid

• Krishnadeva Raya was a Tuluva, not a Sangama, king.
• Talikota (1565) was fought by Rama Raya, the chief minister, after Krishnadeva Raya’s death.
• NCERT: the Sultanates combined because of Rama Raya’s policy, and relations were not always hostile.
• Amaram — Vijayanagara; iqta — Sultans; jagir — Mughals; mokasa — Marathas (UPSC 2000).
• Vitthala is a Maharashtrian form of Vishnu introduced at Hampi.
• The royal centre had 60+ temples; the sacred centre was in the north by the river.
• Lotus Mahal and ‘elephant stables’ are later names; functions uncertain.
• Hiriya canal — Sangama kings (UPSC 2023: Deva Raya I’s dam and canal).
• Nuniz and Paes are 16th-century Portuguese; Conti, Abdur Razzaq, Nikitin 15th-century.
• Vasco da Gama (1498) did not arrive in Deva Raya II’s reign (UPSC 2021).

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Political history: fall of the empire (1979), chronology with Krishnadeva Raya (2000), Saluva and Tuluva successions (2003, 2004), Harihara I and Virupaksha (2015), Krishnadeva Raya’s Telugu poetry (1984) and taxes (2016), amaram (2000), Mysore as a successor state (2021), Deva Raya II and 1498 (2021), Madras lease (2022), Bhatkal and the Portuguese (2024 — answer Krishnadeva Raya).
• City and art: Hampi ruins (1984), Vitthala’s musical pillars (2007), Virupaksha (2009), kalyana mandapas (2019), Deva Raya I’s dam and canal (2023); travellers: Nuniz on women (2021).
• Make a one-page sheet: dynasty → king → event → year; traveller → country → century; structure → zone → function (certain or uncertain).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1 2016: Krishnadeva Raya as scholar and patron — Amuktamalyada (Telugu statecraft), his court poets (Ashtadiggajas, Beyond NCERT), temple building and gopurams, Nagalapuram, patronage that linked kingship and culture; balance with military consolidation (1512, 1514, 1520).
• GS1 2026: Vijayanagara architecture as an amalgamation — Chola/Hoysala temple traditions + Indo-Islamic arches and domes (gateway, Lotus Mahal, elephant stables, queen’s bath) + new forms (raya gopurams, kalyana mandapas, chariot streets, stone chariot) + innovations in water and fortification; continued by the nayakas.
• Method: in any monuments question, add what buildings cannot tell (ordinary people, workers, wages) — NCERT section 7.

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