The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c16.63

v1.c16.63

7. Anyhow the Mussulman sovereigns did not intend to destroy Vijayanagara. Their long six months' stay within its walls seems to demonstrate their purpose of retaining the city for themselves. Another fact, which has never been pointed out hitherto, tells the same story: their construction of new buildings in the old Hindu capital. There are still at Vijayanagara five or six buildings (such as the bath on the east side of the royal enclosure, the so-called elephants' stable, the lotus-palace in the zenana, the small building at the opposite corner of the same enclosure, the tower house in one of the corners of the Danayak's enclosure and the octogonal pavilion on the road to Hampi), that do not belong to the old Vijayanagara style, but to a new school that marvellously combines both Hindu and Muslim styles, the latter predominating. Moreover, the ancient Hindu structures of Vijayanagara were built without mortar: the basements of the royal enclosure, the walls of both the city and the different enclosures and the ruins of the temples show their mortarless construction. But for building the edifices in question mortar was used, and such mortar as has gloriously defied the destructive inclemency of the weather for three centuries and a half. Now, speaking of the buildings of Bijapur, and specially of the flat ceiling of the famous Ibrahim Rauza, Mr. H. Cousens, in his monumental work on Bijapur, says: "The whole secret of the durability of the masonry of those days is the great strength and tenacity of the mortar"¹. Such was the secret of the masons of Bijapur. For these reasons I am inclined to believe that the buildings mentioned above were the work of the Deccani Sultans during their sojourn in the capital of the Hindu Empire. My opinion is confirmed by the following words we read in the Basatin-us-Salatin: "After this (the battle) they (the Sultans) devoted their attention to Vijayanagara and raised mighty and lofty buildings"².