Hampi is a hamlet in the land of Bangalore,
near Hospet. It has given its name to the ruins wich lie scattered about
it of the old capital of the kings of Vijayanagar. The city of Hospet was
built by Krishna Deva Raya, the greatest of all the Vijayanagar kings,
between 1509 and 1520. In this time it was the entrance gate to the city
of Vijayanagar for all the travellers coming up from Goa and the west coast.
"This site is a strangely wild place. Dotted with little, barren,
rocky hills, and immediatly north of it the wide and rapid Tungabhadra
hurries along a boulder-strewn channel downs rapids and through narrow
gorges. The unlimited supply of splendid building material close at hand,
had a considerable influence on the architecture of the city by rendering
it possible, to acquire on the spot, huge blocks of stone of vast dimensions
wich otherwise would not have been so freely used owing to the dificulty
of transporting them from a distance. Up the sides of these hills and along
the low ground between them, run the fortified enclosing walls of the old
city, 370 years since its destruction, and in the valleys among them stand
its deserted streets and ruined temples and palaces."
Baba Home
Dans les grottes
En la pierre
Gopal Swamy Story
Temple où déceda le 6 octobre 1976 Gopal Swamy
Ami de l'éternel
Extract text: "Hampi ruins" by A. H. Longhurst, Asian Educational Services,
New Delhi, 1988.
