The Queens bath tub at HampiHampi - Once the capital of the Vijayangara Empire
Now a World Heritage site.
Now a World Heritage site.
In 1522 a Portuguese traveller, Domingo Paes wrote “Hampi is as large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight, the best provided city in the world”. It is now a World Heritage Site.
By the measure of the middle ages Hampi was an immense, powerful, wealthy and thriving metropolis, strategically well protected by mountains and rivers from unwelcome intruders . Its environment was permeated with rich, fertile vegetation providing all that was needed to sustain the city comfortably, and more. It was also a religious centre and a seat of learning in a intensely beautiful décor of palaces and temples sculpted out of the mysterious volcanic, moonlike, landscape of hard granite.
This place is truly the genus loci tangibly personified. It’s reputation became known far and wide but especially, and more importantly with the Moguls to the north who found the existence of place so close to paradise intolerable and made it their prime mission to see that it was destroyed.
In one blow, the city of Hampi was violated and every single sculpture and palace defaced. To destroy something made of massive granite requires extreme conviction.
The Virupaksha Temple seen in the video was the only building spared and therefore still standing to this day.
Yet another example of senseless destruction driven by ignorance, hatred, greed and intolerance.
This video is a short compilation of many hours of footage shot in 2000 on a Cannon X65 Hi8 so the quality leaves much to be desired but it's good enough to give a good impression of this amazing place.
LINKS
Hampi in the (vlog)map
World Heritage
Karnataka Toutist Bureau
More pictures and foto's
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