A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c16.s1.8

c16.s1.8

He describes Vijayanagar as a great city, “very large and strongly walled. It is situated on the side of a mountain,² and is seven miles in circumference. It has a triple circlet of walls.” It was very wealthy and well supplied, situated on a beautiful site, and enjoying an excellent climate. The king “keeps up constantly 40,000 horsemen” and 400 elephants. The elephants each carry six men, and have long swords fastened to their trunks in battle—a description which agrees with that of Nikitin and Paes. “The common people go quite naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth about their middle. The king wears a cap of gold brocade two spans long. . . . His horse is worth more than some of our cities on account of the ornaments which it wears.”³ Calicut, he says, was ruined in consequence of its wars with the Portuguese.