Vijayanagara and the Deccan

1. Foundation and the Deccan political setting

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Vijayanagara ("city of victory") named both a city and an empire, founded — per tradition and epigraphic evidence — by the brothers Harihara and Bukka in 1336 (date marked uncertain in the chapter's timeline). Class 8: they were former governors under Muhammad bin Tughlaq who rejected Delhi's authority; folklore has a hare chasing hounds at Hampi, read by their guru Vidyaranya as the sign to build the capital there (flag: popular folklore). Contemporaries called the state karnataka samrajyamu; at its height it ran from the river Krishna to the extreme south of the peninsula.

• The Hoysalas of Karnataka, weakened by Sultanate attacks and internal conflict, were absorbed mid-14th century.
• Northern rivals for fertile river valleys and overseas-trade revenue: the Bahmani Sultanate (est. 1347), later fragmenting into the five Deccan Sultanates — Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar, Bidar (under ex-governors, tarafdars); and the Gajapatis of Orissa (est. 1435).
• Titulature (popular tradition): Gajapati = lord of elephants; Deccan Sultans = ashvapati (horses); the rayas = narapati (men).
• Despite warfare, the states shared architectural ideas; the self-styled rayas built on Chola (Brihadishvara, Thanjavur) and Hoysala (Chennakeshava, Belur) temple traditions and "carried them to new heights".

2. Dynasties, apogee and fall

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Dynasty	Period	Notes
Sangama	1336–1485	founders; built the Hiriya canal
Saluva	1485–1503	military commanders
Tuluva	1503–1542	Krishnadeva Raya's dynasty
Aravidu	1542 – end of 17th c.	after 1565 ruled from Penukonda, then Chandragiri

Krishnadeva Raya (r. 1509–29): Raichur doab acquired 1512; Orissa subdued 1514; severe defeats on Bijapur 1520; constant military preparedness yet "unparalleled peace and prosperity". Built fine temples and gopurams; founded Nagalapuram after his mother; patronised Sanskrit, Telugu and Kannada letters; endowed Tirupati and the Vitthala temple; composed the Amuktamalyada — Telugu, on the poet-saint Andal, with a Rajaniti section on statecraft. The most detailed foreign accounts date to his reign or just after. Died of illness, 1529.

Raya–Sultan relations were not inevitably hostile: Krishnadeva Raya backed claimants in the Sultanates, taking pride in the title "establisher of the Yavana kingdom" (Yavana = Sanskrit for Greeks and other north-western peoples); the Sultan of Bijapur mediated Vijayanagara succession disputes after 1529. It was Rama Raya's policy of playing one Sultan off against another that finally united them.

Fall: post-1529 successors faced rebellious nayakas; by 1542 the Aravidus held the centre. In 1565 Rama Raya — chief minister (class 8: Krishnadevaraya's son-in-law) — was routed at Rakshasi-Tangadi (Talikota) by the combined armies of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda; the city was sacked over months and abandoned within a few years. The Aravidus ruled on from Penukonda, later Chandragiri (near Tirupati); nayakas carved out kingdoms; the empire ended mid-17th century.

3. Kings, traders and the horse trade

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• Cavalry warfare made horse imports from Arabia and Central Asia strategic — controlled first by Arab traders, with local kudirai chettis (horse merchants) participating; from 1498 the Portuguese, whose muskets made them key players (class 8: well treated so their horses would not reach enemy kingdoms).
• City markets dealt in spices, textiles and precious stones; trade was a status symbol and its revenue fed state prosperity.
• Amuktamalyada: a king should improve harbours, care for stranded foreign sailors, and bind horse- and elephant-importing merchants with daily audience, presents and "decent profits" — "then those articles will never go to your enemies."

4. The amara-nayaka system

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• Nayakas: military chiefs, usually Telugu or Kannada speakers, controlling forts with armed supporters, moving between areas with peasants seeking fertile land; many submitted to the rayas but often rebelled.
• The amara-nayaka system — the empire's major political innovation, many features likely derived from the Delhi Sultanate's iqta. Amara-nayakas were commanders given territories to govern: they collected taxes from peasants, craftspersons and traders, retaining part of the revenue for themselves and for a stipulated contingent of horses and elephants — the force that subdued the southern peninsula. Revenue also maintained temples and irrigation works.
• Controls: annual tribute; personal appearance at court with gifts; occasional transfers between territories.
• In the 17th century many nayakas founded independent kingdoms, hastening the imperial collapse — the system that built the empire dissolved it.
• Etymology (chapter): amara from Sanskrit samara (battle); resembles Persian amir.

5. The capital's water resources

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• Site: a natural basin of the Tungabhadra (flowing north-east) ringed by granite hills — yet one of the most arid zones of the peninsula: embankments across almost every hill stream created reservoirs to store and conduct rainwater.
• Kamalapuram tank (early 15th century): irrigated nearby fields and supplied the "royal centre" by channel.
• Hiriya canal — most prominent waterwork in the ruins: drew from a dam across the Tungabhadra to irrigate the valley between "sacred centre" and "urban core"; apparently Sangama-built.
• Paes on a tank of Krishnadeva Raya: water piped from over three leagues (~15 km); "fifteen or twenty thousand men, looking like ants"; the king broke down a hill to build it.

6. Fortifications, roads and the urban core

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Fortifications. Abdur Razzaq counted seven lines of forts encircling the city plus its agricultural hinterland and forests; the outermost wall linked the hills. Massive tapered masonry with no mortar anywhere — wedge-shaped blocks held by shape, earth-and-rubble core, projecting bastions.

• Agriculture inside the walls: Razzaq — cultivated fields, gardens and houses between the first and third walls; Paes saw rice fields and gardens; archaeology confirms a canal-fed agricultural tract between sacred centre and urban core. Rationale: medieval sieges starved defenders out; instead of the usual granaries, Vijayanagara's "more expensive and elaborate strategy" protected the agricultural belt itself.
• A second wall circled the urban core, a third the royal centre (each major building set had its own walls). Gateway arches and domes = the Indo-Islamic style introduced by the Turkish Sultans, grown through interaction with local practice.
• Roads wound through valleys avoiding rock; the most important ran from temple gateways, lined with bazaars.

Urban core. Ordinary houses left little trace — Barbosa: thatched but well built, "arranged according to occupations, in long streets". Chinese porcelain (north-east corner) suggests rich traders; this was also the Muslim residential quarter, its tombs and mosques architecturally resembling temple mandapas. Surveys show many small shrines (a variety of cults), with wells, rainwater tanks and temple tanks serving ordinary dwellers.

7. The royal centre

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In the south-west of the settlement — yet with over 60 temples (patronage legitimised rulers through association with the divine) and about 30 palace-type complexes. Contrast: temples wholly masonry; secular buildings had perishable superstructures.

Structure	Chapter's account
"King's palace"	largest enclosure; no definitive evidence of royal residence; holds both great platforms
"Audience hall"	platform with close-set slots for wooden pillars; use unclear
Mahanavami dibba	base ~11,000 sq ft, height 40 ft; bore a wooden structure; relief carvings on the base
Lotus Mahal	named by 19th-century British travellers; Indo-Islamic arches, nine towers; Mackenzie's map suggests a council chamber
"Elephant stables"	conventional label, near the Lotus Mahal
Hazara Rama temple	probably for the king and family only; central images missing; Ramayana panels on inner shrine walls

Mahanavami rituals — tied to the ten-day autumn festival (Dusehra north / Durga Puja Bengal / Navaratri-Mahanavami peninsula), a display of "prestige, power and suzerainty": worship of the image and the state horse; buffalo sacrifice; dances, wrestling, processions of caparisoned horses, elephants, chariots, soldiers; presentations by chief nayakas and subordinate kings; on the last day the king inspected his and the nayakas' armies, the nayakas bringing rich gifts plus stipulated tribute. Paes called hall + dibba the "House of Victory". Caveat (chapter claim): the space around the platform seems inadequate for such processions — "it remains an enigma."

After the sack, nayakas continued the palatial building traditions (e.g. the arched audience hall at Madurai).

8. The sacred centre and temple architecture

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Why this site? The rocky northern riverside was already sacred: local tradition placed Vali and Sugriva's monkey kingdom here; Pampadevi did penance in these hills to marry Virupaksha — the kingdom's guardian deity, a form of Shiva (marriage still celebrated annually); pre-Vijayanagara Jaina temples stand among the hills. Temple building here went back to the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Cholas; temples were religious, social, cultural and economic centres and seats of learning, sustained by land grants.

Kingship and the god: the kings claimed to rule on behalf of Virupaksha; royal orders were signed "Shri Virupaksha", usually in Kannada script; the title "Hindu Suratrana" = Sanskritised Arabic Sultan — "Hindu Sultan". Innovations: royal portrait sculpture in temples; royal temple visits as state occasions attended by the great nayakas.

New idiom: raya gopurams — royal gateways dwarfing the central-shrine towers, advertising royal command of resources from afar; mandapas and long pillared corridors; halls for music/dance/drama, kalyana mandapas for divine weddings, swing pavilions (using special images distinct from the central icon); chariot streets straight from the gopuram, stone-paved, lined with pillared pavilions for merchants' shops.

Temple	Key facts
Virupaksha	earliest shrine 9th–10th century, hugely enlarged under the empire; hall before the main shrine built by Krishnadeva Raya to mark his accession, plus the eastern gopuram; the central shrine became a small part of the complex
Vitthala	deity Vitthala — a form of Vishnu generally worshipped in Maharashtra: importing his cult to Karnataka shows rulers drawing on many traditions to build an imperial culture; unique shrine designed as a chariot; class 8 adds the mahamandapa's monolithic "musical pillars"

Some of the most spectacular gopurams were later built by nayakas (e.g. Madurai).

9. Travellers' accounts and city life

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Traveller	Origin / role	Century
Nicolo de Conti	Italian trader	15th
Abdur Razzaq	Persian ruler's ambassador to Calicut	15th
Afanasii Nikitin	Russian merchant	15th
Barbosa, Paes, Nuniz	Portugal	16th

• Paes: the city "seemed to me as large as Rome" — groves, water conduits, lakes, the king's palm-grove; a bazaar of "rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds, and pearls"; "the best-provided city in the world", markets cheaply stocked with rice, wheat, India corn, pulses, horse-gram.
• Nuniz: markets "overflowing with abundance of fruits" and every kind of meat — down to "rats and cats and lizards" — in Bisnaga (Vijayanagara).
• Problem of perspective: the idealised Krishnadeva Raya statue on the Chidambaram gopuram is self-projection; Paes saw a man "of medium height … rather fat than thin", with smallpox marks.

10. Rediscovery, documentation and the limits of evidence

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The ruined city lived on in local memory as Hampi, from Pampadevi. Historians collated surveys with inscriptions of kings and nayakas (temple donations, events), travellers' accounts, and Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit literature.

Year	Landmark
1800	Colin Mackenzie (EIC engineer-surveyor; first Surveyor General of India, 1815) brings Hampi to light — first survey map, based largely on memories of the Virupaksha and Pampadevi priests; studied the site partly to aid colonial governance
1836	epigraphists begin collecting dozens of temple inscriptions
1856	Alexander Greenlaw — first detailed photographs
1876	J.F. Fleet documents temple-wall inscriptions
1902	conservation begins under John Marshall
1976	site of national importance (ASI + Karnataka archaeology dept.)
early 1980s	~20-year international documentation project: 25 lettered squares, each twice subdivided; thousands of structures, roads and bazaars (traced from pillar bases) mapped
1986	UNESCO World Heritage site

Limits. Fritz, Michell and Nagaraja Rao: imagine "a whole series of vanished wooden elements — columns, brackets, beams, ceilings … towers — decorated with plaster and painted". Buildings show spatial organisation, technique and cultural influence, but not what ordinary people thought, whether they could enter the royal/sacred centres, or who built them, at what wages, with materials from where.

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Exam angles

Prelims:

• Structure–function pairings: mahanavami dibba (Mahanavami rituals; 11,000 sq ft / 40 ft) · Lotus Mahal (possible council chamber — Mackenzie's map) · Hazara Rama (royal; Ramayana panels) · Virupaksha (guardian deity; KDR's accession hall + eastern gopuram) · Vitthala (stone-chariot shrine; musical pillars) · elephant stables · Kamalapuram tank · Hiriya canal (Sangama) · queen's bath.
• Traveller pairings: Conti — Italy · Abdur Razzaq — Persia · Nikitin — Russia (15th c.); Barbosa, Paes, Nuniz — Portugal (16th c.). Paes = "as large as Rome"; Nuniz = overflowing markets; Razzaq = seven fort lines.
• Dynasties: Sangama → Saluva → Tuluva → Aravidu; Krishnadeva Raya = Tuluva; Amuktamalyada = Telugu, on Andal, Rajaniti section.
• Chronology: 1336 foundation · Bahmani 1347 · KDR 1509–29 (Raichur 1512, Orissa 1514, Bijapur 1520) · 1565 Talikota/Rakshasi-Tangadi (Bijapur + Ahmadnagar + Golconda) · 1800 Mackenzie · 1986 UNESCO.
• Terms: amara-nayaka (from samara/amir; likely from Sultanate iqta) · kudirai chettis · gajapati/ashvapati/narapati · "Hindu Suratrana" · karnataka samrajyamu · raya gopuram · kalyana mandapa · Yavana.
• Traps (mark FALSE): "walls used mortar" · "walls enclosed only the city" (also fields, gardens, forests) · "Virupaksha is a form of Vishnu" (Shiva; Vitthala is the Vishnu form, from Maharashtra) · "Rama Raya was king at Talikota" (chief minister / son-in-law) · "the empire ended in 1565" (Aravidus to mid-17th c.) · "Krishnadeva Raya fell at Talikota" (died of illness, 1529).

Mains:

• Water management in an arid zone (embankments, Kamalapuram tank, Hiriya canal) and the anti-siege enclosure of agricultural tracts as statecraft — vs the standard granary strategy.
• Architecture as legitimation: 60+ temples in the royal centre, royal portraiture, "Shri Virupaksha" orders, raya gopurams; the syncretic imperial culture — Chola/Hoysala inheritance + Indo-Islamic arches and domes + the imported Vitthala cult.
• Amara-nayaka vs iqta: tribute, court appearance and transfers as controls; 17th-century nayaka independence as the solvent of empire.
• Raya–Sultanate relations as pragmatic politics, not permanent religious war: "establisher of the Yavana kingdom", Bijapur's mediation, Talikota as the price of Rama Raya's alliance games.
• Historical method at Hampi: oral tradition + survey + photography + epigraphy + travellers + the 1980s mapping project — and what the evidence still cannot recover (wooden elements, ordinary lives, the builders).