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| 3100 Lotus Mahal at the Zenana Enclosure in Hampi |
"…as large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight. There are many canals that bring water right into Vijayanagara, and in places there are lakes. The palace of the king, which is larger than the castle at Lisbon, is close to a palm grove and other richly bearing fruit trees. Below the Moorish quarter there is river… and along its banks fruit trees growing so closely together that they look like a thick forest", wrote the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes around 1520, when he visited Vijayanagara (City of Victory), the capital of the empire with the same name, the last bastion of Hinduism in India.
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| 0089 Elephant Stables in Hapi |
The empire has reached its peak during the reign of Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529), when were erected the impressive temples and elephant stables still standing today at the village of Hampi. Even if they don't agree as to the origin of the empire, historians agree the founders were inspired by Vidyaranya, a saint at the Sringeri monastery to fight the Muslim invasion. After more then 200 years, the killing of emperor Aliya Rama Raya in 1565 at the battle of Talikota, against an alliance of the Deccan sultanates, mark the end of the city. The Sultanate's army plundered Vijayanagara and reduced it to the ruins; it was never re-occupied.
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