When we set out on our tour of Hampi, all I wanted to see was the place � I had heard so much about it, and was excited, in spite of knowing the fact that most structures were in ruins. My knowledge of history however was sketchy (never having paid much attention to it in school, of course!) and didn�t do much reading up before I went. That turned out to be a mistake, since I was bombarded by questions from Samhith ! Questions I had no answers to � the right ones at least! Of course, he was more interested in learning which king killed whom and who broke the temples, and what treasures he took away from there � all, the sort of questions I wanted to distract him from. And the only way to do that was to read up on history and answer his questions correctly. Of course, considering that Hampi is a world heritage site, books were easy to come by. The ASI guidebook alone was enough to begin with, and we both read it through, learning a lot of interesting things we hadn�t known before. I know that many of you wouldn�t really be interested in history, but I still would encourage you to at least skim through it � who knows, like us, you might find something of interest. In any case, the reason I am writing this down is because I realized when I began writing about Hampi that there is so much more to it than just ruins, and the beauty and the importance of the place lies in its history, and its journey from being a stretch of uninhabited land to the capital of one of the richest kingdoms in India, to once again becoming a neglected area forgotten for generations.
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| Map of Hampi at the Virupaksha Temple |
The story of Hampi began with the rise of the Kings of Kampili, in the early 14th century, when they ruled over parts of modern Anantapur, Chitradurga, Shimoga, Raichur, Dharwar and Bellary districts. The kingdom was attacked repeatedly and finally captured in 1326/27 by Muhammad-bin-Tughluq, who had captured the neighbouring kingdom of Devgiri, which he had renamed �Daulatabad�. Among the scores taken as prisoners were two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, who had been officers in the treasury of the Kampila regime. They swore allegiance to the sultan, and were sent back to their kingdom to subdue some rebels. The brothers happily returned to Kampili, threw off their allegiance to Delhi, and set up a kingdom of their own!