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Rock empire
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Mammoth rocks, majestic monuments, ancient temples…pick up the threads of history at this World Heritage Site, says Prema Manmadhan
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Photos: C. R. Manmadhan
Experience an era At the heritage site
Huge granite stones that tell tales, from mythology, of reigns gone by, of monarchy and years of toil that made these gigantic stones graceful sculptures or reliefs, will have you spellbound. Going to Hampi, in North Karnataka, is like turning the pa
ges of a history book and experiencing the era. The erstwhile Vijayanagaram empire stares at you from everywhere in that 26 acre UNESCO World Heritage Site where the excavations have resurrected some of the majestic monuments whose size stumps you.
From Bangalore an overnight journey in the Hampi Express takes you to Hospet by 8 a.m., in time for breakfast at the station: crispy masala dosa and coffee. Eighty per cent of those who alight are tourists, domestic and foreign. You can either stay at Hospet and travel to Hampi, 13 km away, by bus or auto, or stay in the only hotel in Hampi, run by the Karnataka Tourism department, Mayura Bhuvaneshwari. There are homestays aplenty but with inadequate facilities. Ask for a taxi and they tell you that an auto should be okay, that all your luggage will fit in and it will cost just Rs.100! The Hampi tourism season begins in November and ends in March. It’s bearably hot during the day and the nights are a little cold in November.
Mayura Bhuvaneshwari is a sprawling single-storeyed granite structure with rooms in rows, in many directions. The solar heater provides hot water 24 hours. The AC and non-AC rooms are comfortable and the rates are under Rs.1,000 for a double non-AC deluxe room during the season. But it must be booked in advance. The only place where you get good home-style food in Hampi is here.
Organised tours
There are conducted tours from Hospet undertaken by the State Tourism Department, but Hampi cannot be enjoyed in one day. To relax, to take in the grandeur of art and to dwell on the days when life was very different, one needs at least three days. The must-see monuments are all just a few kilometres from Hotel Mayura Bhuvaneshwari, which is centrally located. Tourists can hire cycles, bikes or autorickshaws to go around. We hired an autorickshaw at Rs. 500 per day. Hulugappa, the auto driver doubled up as the guide too, speaking in a mix of English, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil. He would bring us back for lunch, and then take us again to the sites.
Wherever you train your eyes, it is rocks, rocks and rocks, all 70 mm size and beyond: so precariously perched atop one another that you wonder if an earthquake patterned it. The Sisters Rock is a tourist place by the roadside where two huge boulders meet at the top like the letter ‘A’. Migrant workers have made homes between rocks. The Tungabhadra flows on one side and rock ranges skirt the other three sides. The ruins of Hampi proclaim human intolerence, when Mughal invaders attempted to reduce the rich palaces and temples of the Vijayanagaram empire to rubble. Excavations are still going on to recover lost heritage. Most of the temples have no presiding deities at all. At the Vittala temple, the famous 56 musical pillars are now out of bounds for visitors as work goes on inside the main mandapa, says Mohammed Ghouse, an attendant of the ASI. The vandalised remains of the great mandapa tell the visitor what it once was. The elephants have no heads, the horses no legs and the human forms and flowers are there in parts. But the stone chariot stands lording over it all as tourists pose beside it. A steep road leads you to the temple of Malyavanta Raghunathaswamy, one of the few temples where people still worship. Behind the temple are several sunset points, where you can see the sun setting amidst the huge boulders or monuments. The breeze is lovely and at a spot further away from the conventional one, we had the entire place to ourselves, watching the red ball sink into the green horizon.
Sculpted pillars
The Virupaksha temple is loaded with sculpted pillars as also the roof of the main mandapa. The huge tower is partially damaged. Inside the temple, a man plays his trumpet and lets you take a photo — for a fee. There is a baby elephant which will bless you if you put a coin into its cute little trunk, as the mahout systematically removes the coins.
A little away from the temple stand the mammoth rock cut Ganesha, inside a dark granite room. Nearby is the Ugra Narasimha, in a seated posture, which is taller, perhaps the tallest sculpted idol in Hampi.
The beauty of the Lotus Mahal, and the grandeur of the elephant stables and the multi-stepped Pushkarani tank, together with aqueducts and a drainage system make you proud of what ancient India was. With limited connectivity at the World Heritage Site, you are free to have all the time ‘to stand and stare’, just do nothing sitting atop a parapet in one of those protected monuments and wonder what the Vijayanagaram folks did, exactly at this spot, 600 years ago. The Hampi Express which comes from Hubli, took us back to reality and Bangalore, after an overnight journey. IT and all the nuclear talk will be humbled at Hampi, the rock place.
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