Hampi
- Sam Mendelsohn
- Jul 27, 2024
- 17 min read
Updated: Aug 6, 2024
I came to Hampi after my trips to Bijapur and Badami. I would highly recommend bundling Badami in with a Hampi trip, and I’d consider Bijapur too, though it’s further away. More photos from that whole itinerary can be seen in my wife's Instagram stories.
Hampi is worthy of the hype and one of India’s great tourist attractions! The otherworldly landscape, with massive rocks that appear to have been stacked atop one another by some childish god trying to amuse itself, would be worth seeing on its own, as would the vast array of ruins, which must be among India’s largest collections of still standing pre-British historical structures in one place. Put these together and add in the river and lush greenery and the isolated atmosphere you get in many locations, and Hampi is really special and one of a kind.
The history is very interesting as well. I really enjoyed learning as much as I could about Vijayanagar, the first or second biggest city in the world for much of its existence (here’s one population comparison video, with its rise beginning around 1320, don’t know how accurate the exact numbers are but I don’t think its disputed that it was among the world’s largest cities) and the seat of the empire encompassing the bulk of South India (here’s a map showing the early 1500s). You don’t have to care about this, though. Hampi is one of the few places that is just as enjoyable without knowing much of anything. Just getting lost in the ruins without knowing why they are there or when they are from (it's mostly around 500 years old, but it might as well be ancient Rome as far as the uninformed visitor is concerned) is perfectly acceptable here, though that’s normally not the sort of thing I would advocate. That said, beyond learning about the history, it was interesting to get the sense of how the city is laid out and to imagine what life was like back then, and to notice the range of architectural styles, so it’s worth paying some attention.
The history is part of what makes Hampi fun specifically because of its position in history. Vijayanagar has long been talked up as the last great Hindu empire before the subcontinent was ruled largely by the Mughals and then the British. I don’t personally have any sentimental attachment to this narrative (others are welcome to), but as a visitor there are interesting related factors that make it unique. I don’t think there’s any other medieval city in India that’s this well preserved and this well documented, with many traveler's accounts that really bring it to life. So, should you wish to engage with the history, you can bring it to life in a way that I don’t think you can with any other Hindu kingdom in India (though I suppose Kathmandu is comparable).
I don’t want to oversell it being well preserved, because really most of it was destroyed. But the scale of what remains is still impressive, and because it was abandoned and hasn’t had a town develop around it, the ruins were saved from the urban chaos and disorder that a lot of India has succumbed to, and the landscape remains intact. A lot of it is gone, but the parts that remain are, in some sense, frozen in time. On the other hand, visiting Hampi is more like going to an open air museum than a place that’s living and breathing, so in that sense it hasn’t been well preserved at all.
But what does any of this matter? Go and have fun. Walk around. Enjoy the atmosphere. Sit in the shade and read some of the travelers’ accounts if you’re inclined. You'll have a great time either way.
Sightseeing Recommendations
We went to Hampi in February 2023, staying for four days and going out only after 4 PM the first two days (as we were working) and then exploring fully the next two days. This was a good amount of time, though I did feel rushed and would have happily had even more time, but I realize most people will have less time than me and that’s also fine. Two days would suffice to see the major sites and still have breathing room. I didn’t see everything, and it’s impossible to see everything, and I’d recommend taking it slow and enjoying the environment more than trying to cram sites in. I looked at a few “2 days in Hampi” itineraries and thought they were quite bad! I won’t give any itinerary, but hopefully listing the things I thought were the most interesting will help you make your own judgment calls. Evenings were my favorite time to explore, I think an ideal schedule would be to stay a week, work from home in the day (you do get good mobile reception and wifi in parts), and then go out in the late afternoon. Or go at sunrise (I’m not good at that).
Hampi is predominantly split into two main areas, the royal and sacred centers. They’re each walkable amongst themselves but you won’t want to walk from one to the other, at least in the day. The royal center is more of a “go from site to site” place and you can cover this in a few hours, while the sacred center also has its sites you can hop to (namely the four major temples and the large statues) but is also more of a place to get lost in. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts here.
If you feel inclined and have the time, you can see all of the four major temples, but the Vitthala temple is the one to prioritize (both in terms of time and energy), it’s the most architecturally grand and ornate structure in all of Hampi, a must visit. You should also definitely make time for the Virupaksha and Krishna temples, both have great architecture, and the former is interesting because it is still active (complete with an elephant, for better or worse). The other major temple, Achyutaraya (or Tiruvengalanatha), is in worse shape than the other three and isn’t as easily accessible, though it’s still interesting and hardly gets any visitors, which makes it fun. Don’t feel bad skipping it, though. In all of these temples, the massive bazaars opposite them are as interesting as the temples themselves, even if there’s little to see within them.
The other major sites in the sacred center are the large statues, all highly recommended and must sees, some of my very favorite things in Hampi. There’s the Narasimha and shiva linga next to the Krishna temple, the two Ganeshas nearby at the bottom of Hemakuta Hill, and the nandi at the bottom of Matanga Hill at the end of the main Hampi Bazaar. Make these a priority!
More than any of the sites, though, my favorite thing in Hampi was the walk along the river, starting with the trail that begins at the Hampi Bazaar and ends at Vitthala Temple (at the bazaar, look for the sign pointing you to the temple). This is nice to do both in the morning and evening, don’t attempt it once it is already very hot. You should quickly check out the nandi on Matunga Hill before you begin. There are many minor sites to see on the walk, but the old riverside walking route is itself the attraction. The walk itself is around half an hour, but with all of our stops it took around an hour and a half, though I wouldn’t say these are all necessary. We started in the morning around 9 and then by the time we finished exploring Vitthala temple it was around noon. I would recommend this.
The one thing I’d strongly recommend doing on this route is the boat ride, but save this for evening when it cools off. I thought it’d just be a tacky thing for dumb tourists to take photos on the round spinning boats, but it was great to travel by boat and see all of the cave temples and carvings on the water route. Also in this area, I highly recommend the 1001 shiva linga carvings, you have to do some mild rock climbing to get there, don’t attempt if you aren’t young and able!
Beyond this, you’ll walk by many temples, stop if you feel like it, we saw a few but most weren’t very noteworthy. The one major temple to see on the walk is Achyutaraya Temple, which is certainly great and you get it all to yourself, but it’s the least impressive of Hampi’s major temples so if you’re short on time/energy you can skip it. But take note of the bazaar, and it was cool to see the platforms at the temple end of the bazaar where people could board the chariots. Note also a pavilion nearby which has the Vijayanagara insignia (look for the dagger and boar) on the inside. A little further down is Sugriva’s cave from the Ramayana, but it doesn’t seem like anyone really believes it because if they did it would have more visitors, right? (Same with Hanuman’s birthplace across the river, if there were some consensus on it being Hanuman’s birthplace it would be more popular!)
Before you reach the Vitthala temple, keep an eye out for the King’s Balance! If you’re into classical music or just want to check out a pavilion on the water, you can go to Purandara Dasara Mantapa before heading to Vitthala temple.
Other than this walk, I really loved exploring Hemakuta Hill, starting around an hour before sunset. Romping around here, enjoying the views and the interesting architecture on the small temples, was another one of my favorite things in Hampi. I would have liked to do Matanga Hill at sunset as well but didn’t get the chance.
Nothing in the royal center inspired me as much as what I mentioned above, but it’s very much worth seeing the major sites there. The Underground Shiva Temple isn’t a major site, but it’s perhaps the most exotic here. The Lotus Mahal and Elephant Stables both have interesting architecture that differs from the rest of Hampi with its Islamic influence, as does the Queen’s Bath. The Hazara Rama Temple has great carvings and is worth exploring, the pillars inside are amazing and I especially liked the carvings on the outside which depict the local festivals. Then there’s the area with the platform (nice views from here and also great carvings on the walls), stepwell, and underground chamber. This is nice in the evening. Outside look for the large stone doors.
Some of my other favorite things in Hampi were the small, weird details that gave insights into life at the time, or were just charming and quirky for their own sake. There’s the Bhojana Shala, a line of plates and bowls carved into stone where people ate (I read different claims, that it was a picnic spot for courtiers, that it is where troops ate, and that it’s where ordinary citizens ate when the palace prepared feasts, either way it was likely much bigger back then). I also loved seeing the horse trough outside the audience hall (I guess I like seeing old public eating spaces for either man or animal). The 1000 Lingam carving is delightfully weird, and among my favorite discoveries in Hampi are the lizard carvings on the roofs at the Vittala temple. In general the carvings of people at the time are very interesting. I also really loved seeing the carvings made on the rocks in the area where people do laundry on the water next to the Virupaksha Temple. I’m sure there are other hidden gems like these that I didn’t find, and that’s part of what makes Hampi fun.
If you have extra time you can also visit Anegundi, which wasn’t that exciting but I enjoyed going, it’s worth the excursion if you have the time. Whether or not you believe or even care if it was the real Kishkinda, it has appeal as a suburb of Vijayanagar, and for some reason it all made a little bit more sense to me taking a boat there and getting off at the old gateway. It’s just a small, quiet village with a few nice things there, mainly the Gaggan Mahal, the old palace (and the modern home opposite where the royal family lives), some old temples, banana fields, women sitting on their porches making handicrafts from banana fibre (there are a few shops here, see Ukish and The Kishkinda Trust on the same street, I believe run by the same people), and lots of monkeys. My favorite thing was taking a boat to a temple on a small island. The temple wasn’t interesting, but the boat ride was great, just walk to the east side of the village to the boats there. Ooroota Cafe (run by the Kishkinda Trust people, and I think they also run a homestay here) is nice, the food is solid and it’s a good, quiet place to relax in the heat. Afterwards we got an auto to the point where you get a boat to Virupaksha temple. The ride was enjoyable.
It opened after my trip, but Hampi Art Lab looks nice. Seems like a good activity for the sunny mid-day hours.
Also, I didn’t do any wildlife stuff, but I saw this article and thought I’d include it: https://www.cntraveller.in/story/a-wildlife-lovers-guide-to-hampi/
Stay
We stayed at Akash Homestay in “New Hampi.” I wouldn’t say it was anything special in terms of hospitality, but the rooms were nice and clean, there was AC, there was decent wi-fi and cell reception, and the main guy was nice and helpful. Pretty good food at dinner if you ask in advance, not as good as what we got elsewhere in Karnataka but better than what we got at restaurants in Hampi. Around 2k inr a night, if I remember correctly. The location is good, you can get to any of the sites by auto in under 10 minutes. There are plenty of other options for various types of stay (resorts and cottages in fields and whatnot), all I’ll say is if you can afford it the place to stay is definitely Evolve Back. I wanted to go for a meal there but it never made sense to go out of our way for it. Anegundi had a really nice looking boutique stay called Oorooma Cottages which seems to have amazing food, but I personally wouldn’t want to stay in Anegundi the entire time.
Food
You don’t go to Hampi for the food, and I’d say Hampi is the only place in Karnataka where I didn’t have stellar food. Other than our homestay and the shack across from it, neither of which were special, we only had two meals out. One was at Sai Family Restaurant, pretty decent thali, but not up with what we got everywhere else in Karnataka. Same with the thali at Ooroota Cafe in Anegundi, I wondered if it was just an off day because the thali in the photos looked better than what we got. The eggplant roll was delicious, though, and the mixed holiges were too sweet and understuffed for me but were served with local ghee which had a blue cheese taste, highly recommended! They also had good filter coffee which is hard to find in Hampi. Worth going there if you’re in Anegundi. I’m guessing some of the small places not on google maps have good food, but in general I’d say focus on the sightseeing while you’re in Hampi, don’t worry too much about the food, eat as much as you can at your homestay if you have one, and if you don’t plan to go back to your stays then for lunch pick places that are nice to relax in for a while as you will want to avoid being out in the peak afternoon.
Recommended Reading
Listing non-fiction first, and then fiction.
Non-Fiction
There are many interesting things to read about Hampi/Vijayanagar if you feel like engaging with the history or just bringing to life what Hampi was like in its heyday.
The best single thing I read was, unsurprisingly, from William Dalrymple, who wrote a foreward to a photography book on Hampi. Lots of great stories and details in here on the life and culture of Vijayanagar, including many interesting quotes from traveler accounts.
Here’s a great curation of quotes from a Portoguese traveler. Lots of fascinating details in here, my favorite is that Krishnadevaraya apparently drank “three quarter pint” of sesame oil every morning.
And an interesting overview of the historical importance of Vijayanagar.
I recommend all of those to everyone as a primer. If you want to delve deeper, I recommend the book Hampi Vijayanagara by John M Fritz and George Michell. Even if you don’t order it ahead of time, it’s available at the one book store in the Hampi village. The first section, which you can easily read in under an hour, is a good summary of the history and culture of Hampi. The second section is a guidebook of Hampi’s sites, much more in depth than regular guide books. I didn’t always find the depth so interesting, but it did introduce me to some places I wouldn’t have found otherwise. The third section is traveler’s accounts, which I enjoyed parts of, but I much preferred getting a curated greatest hits of quotes, as there are in some of the links above. My favorite part of the book was the first section, and I would recommend it to everyone.
For even more hardcore people, there is the Krishnadevaraya biography Raya by Srinivas Reddy. It’s short, easy to read, and accessible. I can’t say I had that much interest in all of the details in it, the military campaigns and whatnot, but I enjoyed reading it, especially in its depictions of Vijayanagar culture, the poetry and literature, the social structure, caste dynamics, the political organization of the empire, the relationship between the state and the temples, stuff like that. I also enjoyed how the book tells us where its historical information comes from, how well we can trust the texts, etc, and incorporates stories that are in the popular imagination. It will probably be too much detail for most, but if you’re interested in the material it’s very well done and definitely recommended.
And if you’re much more hardcore than me, you can read Reddy’s translation of the Amuktamalyada, written by Krishnadevaraya himself, said to be one of the great works of Telugu literature. I tried a sample and realized immediately it wouldn’t be for me.
On the subject of poetry, you may have heard of the Ashtadiggajas, the eight great Telugu court poets of Vijayanagar. Some of their works have been translated. There’s Theft of a Tree by Nandi Timmana. “Legend has it that the sixteenth-century Telugu poet Nandi Timmana composed Theft of a Tree, or Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, to help the wife of Krishnadevaraya, king of the south Indian Vijayanagara Empire, win back her husband’s affections.” Another poet, Pingali Suranna, has The Demon’s Daughter and The Sound of the Kiss, or The Story That Must Never Be Told. There may be others that have been translated, but I’m not sure. Not my thing, but great to know these exist. I’d read an essay about them, or watch a documentary about them.
A good supplement to all of this is a lengthy podcast on Vijayanagar from Brown Pundits. I really enjoyed this, recommended! It’s not a good introduction for the completely uninitiated, though. It’s better to listen to this after giving yourself a primer on the history.
And Manu Pillai has two short pieces on Vijayanagar:
If you’re a food nerd, it’s definitely worth at least skimming through this:
The part where the Telugu poet Srinatha complains about Tamil food is hilarious:
"They serve at first caru (rasam), spiced strongly with pepper, the pungency of which penetrates like some hot vapour into the ears; the caustic odour of the mustard with which the paccadis are prepared find its way into the brain; the curry made of fried avise (flax) leaves destroys health for a period of six months; Parimela (?) tests the strength of the teeth; the sight of the powder of the dried margosa leaves is enough to cause vomiturition. The dinner in a Tamil household is a fraud. Nevertheless they praise without a sense of humour the sumptuous character of their feasts [68]".
Fiction
For fiction, there’s surprisingly a lot as well!
I really loved Tejo Tungabhadra by Vasudhendra (translated from the Kannada original, which was a major bestseller, though I couldn’t find out what that means in terms of copies sold) and would rank it among my favorite Indian novels. It primarily takes place in the early 1500s and a large chunk of the narrative takes place in a village on the Tungabhadra river nearby the Vijayanagar capital, with the narrative switching between that story and a story set in Lisbon (on the Tejo river, thus the title) with the stories eventually converging. The sites of modern day Hampi only make a brief appearance, but Krishnadevaraya does show up and you get a sense of the life and culture of the era (however made up it may be), and the relationships between Vijayanagar and the neighboring empires. Knowing a bit of the history certainly helped me appreciate it more, but I think it’s very accessible regardless. I don’t read much historical fiction, with a few disappointments in a row turning me off of it, but this makes me want to only read historical fiction! The stories and characters in here are incredibly compelling, they feel “relevant” without forcing a “look at the parallels between then and now, wink wink” dynamic, there are tons of fascinating details about how people lived back then, it conveys historical information in a dramatic way without feeling like a forced, pedantic history lesson, and it’s a great mix of being detailed and also moving the story forward, neither too simply plot driven or too dense. I bought this on a whim, hardly knowing anything about it and not expecting to even like it much, driven mostly by curiosity at what a Kannada language historical fiction bestseller with blurbs by big name historians is like. I’m very glad I did, and I look forward to reading more from Vasudhendra (so far he also has two short story collections translated into English, and I really like what I’ve read from one of them).
The other recent work of fiction on Vijayanagar is Salman Rushdie’s Victory City. I enjoyed it, though I am much less enthusiastic about it than I am about Tejo Tungabhadra. I haven’t read enough Rushdie to say how it compares to his earlier works (I struggled to read 100 pages or so of Midnight’s Children before giving up on it, and I found his kid’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories to be too kiddy). It’s high on whimsy, quirkiness, and allegory, and I mean none of that as a compliment. It impressively still manages to be fun and engaging, though, especially after reading a lot on the history of Vijayanagar and seeing how he turned that into a goofy fairy tale. I’m glad I read it and would recommend it to someone who visits Hampi, delves into the history, and wants to see that history turned into a silly fantasy tale. Though much of it is made up and totally absurd, it does lift a lot directly from the history, and it cleverly incorporates actual history with popular history and legends. Unlike Tejo Tungabhadra, I can’t imagine finding this interesting if I hadn’t already had an interest in the setting and history. I’m curious about the rave reviews from western critics who admit to not having heard of Vijayanagar before, and I suspect they mean these reviews more as lifetime achievement awards for Rushdie than actual praise of the book…
I also enjoyed reading the Amar Chitra Katha stories, there’s one on Krishnadevaraya and two on Tenali Rama. For kids, but a good way to learn the “legends.” I was unable to find the origin of the Tenali Rama stories, I believe he was not a real person but at some point the stories became part of the Vijayanagar lore, but I am unsure when and how this happened.
There’s also By the Tungabhadra by the iconic Bengali writer Saradindu Bandopadhyay. It seems a bit too “old fashioned adventure story” for me, but I suspect it’s fun. And Girish Karnad wrote the play Crossing to Talikota, trailer for a recent production here. And there’s a Tamil language novel that’s recently been translated called I, Krishnadevaraya, by Ra. Ki. Rangarajan, with a first person account of the ruler’s romantic side. I want to read it.
Not really related, but I searched for artwork of what Vijayanagar looked like but couldn’t find anything. I don’t get the point of Hindu Nationalism if we aren’t at least getting some good Vijayanagar art. I did make some AI versions of it but I find AI art annoying enough at this point that I don’t wish to share it (it was cool though).
Films
I haven’t seen any films set in Vijayanagar, here is the wikipedia page of them, and there are surely more.
There’s a documentary by Girish Karnad called Kanaka Purandara about two important saints, poets, and Carnatic musicians from the Vijayanagar era. As I mentioned earlier, there’s a pavilion in Hampi dedicated to Purandara Dasa where he apparently composed some of his works as a court musician. Search their names on youtube for some music ot listen to while you’re there. I don’t know much about them, and I started to watch the documentary which is narrated in English, but then there are some unsubtitled dramatized scenes I think in Kannada, and then some that are unsubtitled and narrated over, and I didn’t feel like watching any more. I’ll watch it one day though. Worth checking out, it should give a different side to the culture of the time than the readings I linked to. Here’s a link, it’s a decent print:
Srinivas Reddy (who wrote the aforementioned Raya) had high praise for some of the old Telugu films (he didn’t mention specifically which ones, but he references Mahamantri Timmarusu numerous times in the book, so that’s at the top of my list) but said you have to understand classical Telugu and not just modern Telugu to really appreciate the works. I take it subtitles won’t suffice, but I would still like to watch them one day.
The much newer Telugu film Aditya 369, about a time traveler who goes to Vijayanagar, looks like a lot of fun, and my guess is this one will be more accessible than the earlier ones in terms of the language and the amount of historical knowledge required of the viewer. This one has an outstanding Ilaiyaraaja soundtrack, too, if you’re looking for something to listen to while you’re here.
There’s also an episode of Bharat Ek Khoj about Vijayanagar.
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