A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c11.16

c11.16

The chronicle continues by saying that the king constructed in the city of Vijayanagar a magnificent temple in honour of the sage. This temple I take to be the great temple near the river, still in use and known as the temple of Hampi or Hampe, having a small village clustering about it. On the rocks above it, close to a group of more modern Jain temples, is to be seen a small shrine built entirely, roof as well as walls, of stone. Everything about this little relic proves it to be of greater antiquity than any other structure in the whole circuit of the hills, but its exact age is doubtful. It looks like a building of the seventh century A.D. Mr. Rea, superintendent of the Madras Archæological Survey, in an article published in the *Madras Christian College Magazine* for December 1886, points out that the fact of mortar having been used in its construction throws a doubt upon its being as old as its type of architecture would otherwise make it appear. It is quite possible, however, that the shrine may have been used by a succession of recluses, the last of whom was the great teacher Mâdhava. If we stand on that rock and imagine all the great ruins of the city visible from thence, the palaces and temples, the statues and towers and walls, to be swept out of existence, we have around us nothing but Nature in one of her wildest moods—lofty hills near and far, formed almost entirely of huge tumbled boulders of granite, but with trees and grass on all the low ground. It was a lonely spot, separated by the river from the more inhabited country on the farther side, where dwelt the chiefs of Ânegundi, and was just such as would have been chosen for their abode by the ascetics of former days, who loved to dwell in solitude and isolation amid scenes of grandeur and beauty.