Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c16.13

c16.13

Among the sites containing the Vijayanagar monuments the most important one is the present tiny and fever-stricken village of Hampi, once the glorious capital of the Vijayanagar emperors. It now looks too wild to have been the birth-place and capital of an empire. Hampi is at present seen dotted with little hills of granite and not a blade of grass can be seen there now. Huge boulders are found there in the "most fantastic confusion." But on this unpromising site rose the city "of widespread fame, marvellous for its size and prosperity with which for richness and magnificence no Western capital could compare," a city which even to-day is "virtually a vast (and impressive) open air museum of Hindu monuments."