A bridge across time

Hugh and Colleen Gantzer visit the ruins of Hampi. Situated on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, this beautiful, planned city was once the capital of the Vijayanagar empire 

IT was, once, the Chandigarh of the ancient times in South: a beautiful, planned and vibrant city. Its planners had provided ‘sectors’ though they didn’t call them that — for the city’s VIPs, ordinary citizens, shrines, administrators, traders, armed forces, sportspeople and, very pragmatically, also for those in search of the self-indulgent good life. Even Corbusier didn’t go quite that far.

And all this happened 600 years ago, Today, as we drove into Hampi, rocky hills rose on three sides of the vale of the swift-flowing Tungabhadra river. Within this secure place, monumental, honey-gold boulders lay scattered. Rivers, rivulets and canals gushed through the valley, irrigating the rich soil. From here, the famed Vijayanagar dynasty had reached out over an empire stretching from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, guarded by a million troops and 15,000 cavalry. The wealth of the empire poured into this glittering city and 200 policemen maintained order and discipline in the power centre of this formidable nation. Hampi was a rigidly controlled, rich and efficiently administered city.

And so they could afford to revel in luxury. The queens’ baths look rather block-like from the outside. Inside, however, gallery-verandas, with overhanging Rajasthani balconies, encircle a 15-metre square bath. Cool, perfumed, water had poured in the form of a minor waterfall at one side and flowed out through an underground drain. Significantly, the most prominent monuments in this area were devoted to festivities. From the highest platform of a massive amphitheatre, the king had had a grandstand view of jugglers, mummers, acrobats and, may be, martial displays by his powerful army.

A short stroll away was the walled Hazara Rama temple, once reserved for royalty. The bas-reliefs at the temple are excellent. We were particularly intrigued by a hawk-like bird, not quite the traditional Garuda, with multiple wings, it resembled mythical creatures from old Persian folklore. As Vijayanagar used to import horses from Persia, this sculpture probably reflects the West Asian connection.

On the other hand, in the walled area of the zenana, or women’s quarters, there is an exquisite Indian pavilion called the Lotus Mahal. In all likelihood, the king’s ladies, who lived in the queens’ palace opposite, met in the Lotus Mahal on cool evenings.

Appreciably larger, arches marked the long line of the elephant stables. When a defeated king fled from Hampi, he carried his treasures on 1,500 elephants: wealth amassed because of the mutual accord between its secular and religious forces! The royal family, very astutely, built temples with superb works of art, installed powerful idols, and generally kept the priesthood happy.

Two of the most impressive, freestanding, idols are the ones of the, oddly named, mustard-seed Ganesh and the Lakshmi-Narasimha. No one seemed to know when the 2.4 metre high idol of Ganesh was carved nor, who sculpted the 6.7 metre-high Narasimha monolith, out of a single granite boulder. Even in its present, damaged, state the awesome man-lion dominates the green fields out of which it rises.

One of the more striking features of Hampi is the fact that a living village meanders through the ancient monuments. A red cow ambled past a green field, backed by boulders, cut for ancient sculptures; irrigation ditches gushed past shrines. A child driving a flock of goats past the Narasimha monolith told us, "You should see the Great Linga. It is the only one of its kind anywhere in the world!" We took his advice.

Standing in its own shrine, the huge stone linga, rises out of a massive yoni base, from the centre of a pool of water. It is aloof, powerful, monolithic and requires no idols or decorations to enhance its awesome presence.

There is just too much to see in the great expanse of this historic World Heritage Monument in a single tour. This time, however, we visited the Virupaksha, a living temple, and one of the most revered locally. It is five centuries old and we noticed a very unusual snake deity, multi-headed and glittering, occupying a side shrine.

We were near the end of our visit now and a saffron dusk softened the boulder-strewn slopes rising behind the ruins of the old bazaar. At the end of this once-colourful street is the outstanding Vitthala Temple with an imaginative shrine built like a stone chariot. Its 500 year-old carvings, its musical pillars, which sound like stringed instruments and bells when struck, and its setting near the flowing river, held us enthralled.

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