Hampi

Put your hand on the nearest boulder. The granite is rough, and by midmorning it holds the warmth of the sun like a stove. All around you, rocks the size of houses balance on one another at angles that look impossible. Some seem ready to roll at the slightest push. They have stood like this for a very long time. Welcome to Hampi, where a lost royal city lies scattered across one of the strangest landscapes in India.

This place was once the heart of the Vijayanagara Empire. The name means City of Victory. The empire rose in the fourteenth century, and tradition credits two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, with its founding. Over the next two centuries it grew into one of the most powerful states in southern India. Its capital spread across this rocky valley beside the Tungabhadra River. Today, the ruins cover a huge area, and the town of Hosapete lies a short drive away.

Before the kings came, the gods were already here, at least according to local belief. The old name of the Tungabhadra River was Pampa, and Hampi takes its name from it. Pampa is also a name of the goddess who, locals say, won the heart of Shiva on these banks. Many people also link the surrounding hills with Kishkindha, the kingdom of monkeys in the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic. These are stories of faith rather than documented history. But walk the hills, and you will meet them everywhere.

Start where Hampi still lives — at the Virupaksha Temple. Its tall gateway tower, called a gopuram, rises over the end of the old bazaar street. This temple is dedicated to Shiva in his form as Virupaksha. Unlike most of the ruins around you, it is still an active place of worship. Bells ring. Oil lamps flicker. Pilgrims walk barefoot across stone floors that have been polished smooth by centuries of feet.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. Inside the temple complex, look for a small, darkened chamber. Light enters through a narrow opening in the wall. On the opposite surface, an upside-down image of the main gateway tower appears, projected by the light itself. It works on the same principle as a pinhole camera. Whether the builders planned this or discovered it by chance, nobody can say for sure. Either way — it still works.

The long street in front of the temple was once a great market. Foreign travellers who visited Vijayanagara wrote about it with astonishment. A Portuguese visitor named Domingo Paes described a city of enormous size and wealth in the early sixteenth century. Merchants, he wrote, sold precious stones in the open market. Today, you can still see the stone pavilions that lined the street. Their columns now frame only grass and dust, and the occasional goat.

The empire reached its peak under King Krishnadevaraya, in the early sixteenth century. He was a soldier, a patron of poets, and a builder. Many of the grandest monuments here date from his time or shortly after. Temples grew larger and more richly carved. Water was brought into the city through canals and channels, some of which you can still trace in the ground. The royal city became a showcase of power, and of art.

Then, in 1565, everything changed. At the Battle of Talikota, an alliance of rival sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara army. In the months that followed, the capital was looted and burned. The empire did not disappear at once, but its rulers never returned to this city. Slowly, the great streets emptied. What you see today is not a city that crumbled with age. It is a city that was broken, and then left behind.

Now make your way to the Vittala Temple, along the river. In its courtyard stands a stone chariot, carved in the shape of a temple shrine on wheels. It is one of the most recognised images in India, and it appears on the back of the country's fifty-rupee banknote. Look closely at the wheels. They were carved to look as if they could turn. The chariot holds a shrine for Garuda, the eagle who carries the god Vishnu.

The Vittala Temple has a second surprise. Some of its slender stone pillars were known to produce musical tones when tapped. People called them the musical pillars. Years of eager tapping caused damage, so visitors are now asked not to touch them. Instead, stand still and look at how thin and finely cut they are. Granite is a hard stone to carve. Here, it has been shaped almost like wood.

In the royal area, the style shifts. The Lotus Mahal is a graceful pavilion with arched openings, mixing Hindu and Islamic design. Nearby, the Elephant Stables form a long row of domed chambers, large enough for the royal elephants. Not far away, at the Hazara Rama Temple, the outer walls carry long carved bands of processions — horses, dancers, soldiers, and scenes from the Ramayana. Walk slowly along these walls. The carvings read almost like a film strip in stone.

Do not miss the giant figure of Narasimha, the half-man, half-lion form of Vishnu. He sits cross-legged, carved from a single boulder, with wide, staring eyes. Close by, a huge stone lingam, the symbol of Shiva, stands in a small chamber with water around its base. Elsewhere you will find stepped water tanks, built with neat geometric stairs that lead down into the earth. Each part of Hampi seems to hold another discovery behind the next boulder.

The ruins were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. Yet Hampi does not feel like a museum. Farmers work banana and rice fields between the monuments. On the river, boatmen paddle round coracles, little basket boats woven from bamboo. Children chase each other across ancient platforms. The old city and the present day share the same ground, and neither seems to mind.

Before you leave, find a quiet rock and sit for a moment. Watch the light move across the boulders — gold in the morning, deep orange as the sun sets. Listen for the temple bells, the river, the wind in the palms. Five centuries ago, this valley was filled with the noise of one of the great cities of the world. Now, mostly, there is this silence. Take a little of it with you as you walk on.