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The city of Vijayanagar was established just after the brutal raids of Alauddin Khilji’s general, Malik Kafur. Around 1336, two brothers, Hukka and Bukka, appear to have got together to defeat rival groups and build a fortified new city. This city was called Vijayanagar or City of Victory. At its height in the early sixteenth century, it was probably the largest city in the world.

The city was built across the river from Kishkindha, site of the monkeykingdom described in the Ramayana. It is a landscape of rock outcrops and gigantic boulders. This was not a coincidence because the rocky terrain would help to defend the city against the military skill of the Turkic cavalry. An additional advantage was that the place had easy access to iron-ore from the mines of Bellary which were nearby. These mines are still in use today.

A number of visitors have described Vijayanagar in those times, including Abdul Razzaq, envoy from the Persian court, and several Europeans such as Domingo Paes and Fernão Nunes. They say that the city was encircled by a series of concentric walls, as many as seven of them! The largest gap between the first and second walls was used mostly for gardens and farming. Within the inner walls were bazaars, homes, mansions and temples. At the core was a magnificent palace-complex surrounded by strong fortifications. Though the city considered itself to be a place where Classical Hinduism was alive and flourishing, it was quite cosmopolitan. That is, it had sizeable numbers of Muslims, christians and even Jews. Paes tells us that ‘the people of this country are countless in number, so much so that I do not want to put it down for fear that it should be thought fabulous.’ He goes on to add, ‘This is the best provided city in the world . . . the streets and markets are full of laden oxen so much so that you cannot get along for them.’

The remains of Vijayanagar can be visited at Hampi in Karnataka and are simply spectacular. Perhaps only the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia can be compared to those of Hampi in terms of sheer scale. It is too large to be explored by foot and you will need a car and a good guide. As described by the travellers, there is still quite a bit of farming that continues within the UNESCO World Heritage Site. People still use the old canals. There are even remains of a system of stone aqueducts that once brought water into the city.

In 1565, Vijayanagar was attacked by an alliance of all the Muslim kings of the Deccan. After they were defeated in the Battle of Talikota on 26 January, the Vijayanagar army withdrew instead of defending the capital. The great city was plundered for six months. It never recovered from this attack. Vijayanagar can be considered the last flash of the classical phase of Hindu civilization. The second cycle of India’s urbanization had begun on the banks of the Ganga but ended on the banks of the Tungabhadra.

Excerpted from Pages 163-165  of ‘The Incredible History of the Geography of India by Saneev Sanyal