Historical Geography of Ancient India c7.675

c7.675

Vijayanagara.—Vijayanagara is the same as Bijānagar, situated in the midst of the Karṇāṭadeśa. In its glorious days this kingdom included the whole of the present Madras State, Mysore and the districts of Dharwar and North Canara in the Bombay Presidency excepting the districts north of the Kṛṣṇā river, the district of Malabar in the West Coast, Travancore and Cochin. Its lovely palaces were as high as mountains (*S.I.I.*, Vol. I, pp. 69–70, 161, 164). There were in it many populous and flourishing towns besides villages. Many of the towns were old and only some sprang up in the Vijayanagara period. The vast population of the empire may be divided into different classes. Broadly speaking they may be brought under two classes: the consumers and the producers. Certain classes of people took a great part in the social activities of the age, such as games and amusements, and were patronized both by the state and by the people. There was a village *Sabha*. There were professional associations and guilds. It was the capital of the Vijayanagar kings, noted for temples, palaces, etc. partially destroyed in 1565 by the Muslims. The Vijayanagara Inscriptions in Mysore are nearly as numerous as those of the Hoysalas. From some inscriptions in the famous Kṛṣṇa temple at Vijayanagar it is known that when in 1514 A.D. Kṛṣṇa Deva Rāya, the greatest of all the Vijayanagar rulers, captured the fortress of Udayagiri from Pratāprudra, the Gajapati king of Orissa, he took with him from that place an image of Bālakṛṣṇa and enshrined it in a Kṛṣṇa temple in his own capital (*A.S.I., Annual Report*, 1916/17, Pt. I, p. 14; *The Second Vijayanagar Dynasty* by Kṛṣṇa Shāstrī, *A.S.I., Annual Report*, 1908/9, Pt. II; *Economic Life in the Vijayanagar Empire*, by T. V. Mahalingam, published by the University of Madras, 1951). The ancient Pampā, now known as Hampe, was the name of the site of Vijayanagara.