Magical Hampi-A Traveller's Tryst With Time

chillibreeze writer — Dashrath Kurli

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“Come, look out over this vast expanse of land. This colossus of stone, from where the great Vijayanagara Empire was built,” he says, ushering me to the ‘mahanavami dibba ’, or the ‘great platform.’ The halcyon days of the empire are long gone, but remnants of its greatness and splendor remain.

I am following Keshava, my luxuriously mustached octogenarian guide, proud and strong, dressed in a white dhoti and aided by a walking cane, as he shepherds me through the Royal Center of Hampi, patiently recounting tales of strength and valor, of opulence and magnanimity and of subsequent destruction and abandonment. Although his Kannada is sometimes hard to comprehend, his enthusiasm for the history of Vijayanagara is unmistakable.

Keshava is illiterate. His knowledge of history through oral traditions has been passed on for countless generations. “And on this platform, once sat Krishnadeva Raya, King of Kings. From here, he overlooked the Navarathri festival, that nine days-nine nights state festival, which continues even today,” he continues, as I come to terms with this celestial city.

He is a poet at heart; managing to recite one on every topic that we discuss, from war and empire to women and marriage. I get the feeling that Krishnadeva Raya, under whose patronage art and architecture reached its zenith, would have quite liked Keshava, being a scholar himself.

His own place of worship,the Hazara Rama Temple, is carved with vignettes from the Ramayana, depicted on long arrays of stone. As the name suggests, it pays tribute to Rama, chronicling his birth, his exile, the abduction of his wife Sita, and the consequent battle with Ravana. The ultimate objective is to portray the triumph of good over evil.

The wealth of Vijayanagara was something that I had hitherto been unable to comprehend. I had trouble fathoming historical enormities, their sizes seeming almost unreasonably vulgar at times. This deficiency of mine is corrected in due course, as my guide elucidates the purpose of the King’s balance. Consequently, I lose my balance when told that the king was less interested in the physical fitness of his subjects, preferring to use the balance to weigh himself against diamonds for later distribution.

The Virupaksha Temple is said to have been in continuous use since the seventh century, a long time taking into account the aggression Hampi has been subjected to. Muslim invaders somehow thought better than to ransack it, much to the pleasure of its present-day onlooker.

“The scientists of Vijayanagar knew the workings of the camera,” says Keshava, as he shows me a pinhole through which I see a shadow of the building turned upside down. Nowadays, this temple has been filmed by another camera, the kind a certain actor from Hong Kong by the name of Jackie Chan, used while filming a movie, not incredibly named ‘The Myth’.

If the treatment of animals is the yardstick by which moral progress is measured, none can compete with Vijayanagar. The elephant stables with their large domes are to be admired for their symmetry.
Although the architecture in Hampi had inspired me, no introduction could have prepared me for the great Vittala temple, the climax of my sojourn. It’s that picture postcard image which I had seen years ago as a schoolboy but could never locate, the most replete architectural wonder in the complex. Fittingly, my guide has left it for the end.

Keshava produces a musical prestidigitation, or so it seems, until he explains the subtle acoustics of the musical pillars. Stupefied by these pillars, I have hardly recovered, when he befuddles me again by transforming one of the friezes from one beast to another, simply by covering a part of the image.
A once ambulatory stone chariot stands at the entrance, its base shielded from the elements by its unique position. So exquisite are the stone carvings that I walk around the chariot half a dozen times, friezing it in my mind.

We come across a large courtyard, with impeccably manicured lawns and well-paved pathways. “We have been lucky after 1986. Before that, nobody wanted to hear this story. UNESCO deemed this a World Heritage site, and since then tourists have been pouring in. Interest began to grow, and has increased exponentially over the past five years. Once the government realized there was money to be made, they jumped in. We Indians need foreigners to validate our achievements,” says Keshava.

The assuaging of the heat, accompanied by a Technicolor sunset, revitalizes my energy and I look up once more at the vista that has enthralled a million eyes for five centuries. Hampi had cast its spell on me. Embarrassed by my feebleness as Keshava negotiates the heat with relative ease, I ask him one final question:

“How did so great an empire have so steep a fall?” His answer is unsurprisingly laconic. “Virtue is not hereditary.”

I discover that I am not the only one who has been mesmerized. Five hundred years separate me and Domingo Paes, but when the Portuguese traveler walked on the Virupaksha Bazaar, Vijayanagar was supposedly “larger than Rome”, and more grandiose than it has ever been.

A lax police, a cheap developing country, and an almost heavenly setting among stars, temples and rocks make it a burgeoning travel hotspot for the young and carefree. "Of all the places in South India, Hampi takes the cake, and perhaps the bakery too," says Bernd, a German traveler I meet at the hotel, who has spent a week in Hampi, climbing rocks and taking pictures.

"There is an aura here, every stone tells a fable, a crumbling ancient city juxtaposed against huge boulders, azure skies and jasmine trees. The drugs just make it all the better," he says, obviously intoxicated by the place, and perhaps a little something else.

I assuage my exhaustion at the Shanti Guest house, an appropriately named lodging, modest but spotless, a welcome relief from the day’s ostentation. And as night falls, and I retire to my bed, I am reminded of another poet, who warns of the insignificance of human beings over time. However, the ‘colossal wreck’ Hampi, stands in defiance, the ageless stones whispering to its passersby that some achievements are not ephemeral.

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—About our writer:

Dashrath Reddy is a jazz aficionado, marathon runner, and a Bill Murray devotee among other things. When not dissecting the complexities of political science or supporting his beloved Liverpool Football club, he can be found on the beaches of Karnataka wandering about aimlessly.

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