A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21.114

c21.114

Some secular buildings within the citadel of Vijayanagar of which the lower portions have escaped the fury of its destroyers deserve a passing notice. Two of these impressive basements stand out above many others—the King's Audience Hall and the Throne Platform (or House of Victory, as it is sometimes called because it was intended to commemorate Krishnadeva Rāya's conquest of Orissa). These buildings go far to show that the encomiums bestowed on the architecture of the city by many foreign travellers were fully justified. Both terraces must have been surmounted by pillared pavilions with pyramidal roofs, several storeys high. The Audience Hall was a hall of a hundred pillars, ten rows of ten pillars each. The pillars evidently had square bases, cylindrical shafts and bracket capitals. The basement, in three spacious diminishing stages one above the other with fine flights of steps and sides, was decorated by broad, bold mouldings and courses in conformity with the monumental character of the whole structure. The Throne Platform is also in three diminishing stages, square in plan, the lowest tier having sides of 132 feet and the highest sides of 78 feet. The highest stage of the platform is decorated by extremely beautiful mouldings in stone while the two lower stages are more or less plain masonry plinths, carrying, however, bands of figures and animals of an entertaining character in low relief.