The capital's water resources

Detail

Why the site needed so much waterwork

• The city sat in a natural basin of the Tungabhadra, a river that flows north-east here.
• Granite hills ring the basin on three sides. Good for defence, bad for farming.
• Yet this is one of the most arid (very dry, low rainfall) zones of the peninsula. A big city could not live on rain alone.
• So the rulers built embankments (earth-and-stone walls) across almost every hill stream. Each wall trapped rainwater and made a reservoir. Water was then led away by channel to where it was needed.
• Hampi lies in the Tungabhadra basin in central Karnataka; the setting mixes the river, rocky hill ranges and open plains [2].
• Of the more than 1,600 surviving remains at the site, water structures are one whole class — showing how much engineering went into water [2].

Kamalapuram tank

• Built in the early fifteenth century.
• It did two jobs at once:
• watered the fields nearby;

• sent water by channel to the "royal centre" (the walled part where the king, court and palaces were).

• So the same tank served farming and the state's own quarter. Water supply was a royal concern, not only a village one.

Hiriya canal

• The most prominent (most visible, biggest) waterwork still seen in the ruins.
• It drew its water from a dam built across the Tungabhadra.
• It irrigated the cultivated valley that lay between the "sacred centre" (the temple zone by the river) and the "urban core" (the main living and market zone).
• Apparently built by the Sangama dynasty — the first ruling family of Vijayanagara. So this system was started early, not added late.
• Wider record: an old Turtha canal is named as a feeder of the capital, along with twelve barrages (low dams) across the Tungabhadra and a tank called Rayakere [2].

Krishnadeva Raya's tank — the account of Paes

• Domingo Paes was a Portuguese traveller who saw the city in the time of Krishnadeva Raya.
• He described a large tank where water was piped in from over three leagues away (about 15 km).
• He saw "fifteen or twenty thousand men, looking like ants" at work on it.
• The king, he said, broke down a hill to build it.
• Two lessons from one sentence:
• the state could command huge labour for one project;
• water works were also display — proof of a king's power, not only a farming tool.

Inscriptions and named water bodies

• An inscription of King Krishnadevaraya names several tanks at Hampi: Kannikakatte, Bhupati kere, Gaurji and Chikkakere, plus the Nagalapura canal [2].
• "kere" is the Kannada word for tank. Rulers put their water gifts on stone, the same way they recorded temple gifts.

Tanks inside the city, not only outside

• The complex has a large pushkarani (a stepped tank — a square water body with stone steps going down all four sides) with a Vasantotsava mandapa, a ceremonial pavilion standing at its centre [2].
• Around it are wells and a network of water channels [2].
• So water inside the walls was for ritual and ceremony, while the canals and reservoirs outside were for crops and drinking.
• Remains of a 16th-century aqueduct (a raised channel carrying water across low ground) and an old canal system survive at Virupapura Gaddi island in the river [2].

What the water system tells us

• Rain was stored, river water was dammed, and both were moved by channel. Three methods working together.
• The royal centre, the farm valley and the temple zone were each supplied. Planning covered the whole city, not one quarter.
• Hampi was the seat of power of the Vijayanagara empire from 1336 to 1565, and the site is a UNESCO World Heritage property (Group of Monuments at Hampi) [2].

Note: UNESCO/ASI descriptions give the capital's active life as 1336–1565 (sacked by the Deccan Sultanates' confederacy in 1565, then plundered for about six months and abandoned) [2]. The NCERT-based era label 1336-1646 runs to the end of the empire's later phase under successor lines, not the capital's own end.

Prelims Hooks

• The Vijayanagara capital sits in a natural basin of the Tungabhadra, which flows north-east at that point.
• The region is one of the most arid zones of the peninsula, despite the river.
• Kamalapuram tank — early 15th century; watered fields and supplied the royal centre by channel.
• Hiriya canal — largest surviving waterwork; fed by a dam on the Tungabhadra; irrigated the valley between the sacred centre and the urban core; credited to the Sangama rulers.
• Domingo Paes (Portuguese) described Krishnadeva Raya's tank: water piped from over three leagues (~15 km); "fifteen or twenty thousand men, looking like ants."
• An inscription of Krishnadevaraya names the tanks Kannikakatte, Bhupati kere, Gaurji, Chikkakere and the Nagalapura canal [2].
• The Turtha canal and twelve barrages across the Tungabhadra are recorded at Hampi [2].
• Pushkarani = stepped tank; the large one has a Vasantotsava mandapa at its centre [2].
• A 16th-century aqueduct and canal system survives on Virupapura Gaddi island [2].
• Hampi has over 1,600 surviving remains, water structures among them; UNESCO World Heritage, capital 1336–1565 [2].

Mains Points

• Water control was state power. The same kings who endowed temples also dammed the river and dug canals. Tanks were named in royal inscriptions [2] exactly like temple gifts — so hydraulic works were acts of kingship, giving both food security and prestige.
• Environment shaped the city plan. An arid granite basin forced a layered answer: embankments on every hill stream, a river dam, channels to the royal centre. Link this to GS-I questions on geography-and-settlement, and compare with Harappan drainage or Chola tank-and-sabha irrigation.
• Agrarian base of an imperial capital. The Hiriya canal watered farmland inside the city walls, between the sacred centre and the urban core. A capital of this size could not be fed from outside alone — showing the mix of urban and rural inside one fortified zone.
• Written and material evidence agree. Paes's eyewitness account of 15,000–20,000 labourers matches the physical scale of surviving canals, tanks and aqueducts at the site [2]. A good example for answers on using travellers' accounts with archaeology, while noting a foreign visitor's numbers may be rough estimates.