Rediscovering Vijayanagara

Vijayanagara ('city of victory') was both the name of a city and of an empire. The empire was founded in the fourteenth century, and at its height stretched from the river Krishna to the tip of the peninsula. In 1565 the city was sacked, and it was later deserted.

It lived on in local memory as Hampi, a name derived from the local mother goddess, Pampadevi.

Its ruins were brought to light in 1800 by Colin Mackenzie, an engineer and surveyor of the East India Company (later the first Surveyor General of India). He prepared the first survey map of the site. Much of his early information came from the memories of the priests of the Virupaksha temple and the shrine of Pampadevi.

From 1836, epigraphists began collecting inscriptions from the temples, and from 1856, photographers began recording its monuments, so scholars could study them.

Historians combined these sources with the accounts of foreign travellers and with literature in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit to rebuild the history of the city and empire. Memory, survey, photograph, inscription.