Post lunch on Day - 1
As the afternoon heat eased up a little, we proceeded to Palace ground, the area is more than 600 acers. Palace grounds once had number of Royal buildings. Queens' palace, Lotus palace, Jal mahal, Queen's bath, Treasury building etc.
First we visited queen's bath. The bath is like a swimming pool with depth of around 1.8 meters. The water source was Kamalapur lake, I wrote about in my earlier blog. The underground aqua ducts or earther pipes (none are visible now) use to bring water to queen's bath (inlet for the water is seen). There must have been level difference between source of the water and the queen's bath for water to flow under gravity to the bath. In order to filter the water before queens could use it, water from the lake was collected in a moat with thick layer of sand. Water accumulated in the moat used to percolate through the sand as a filter and reach the bathing tank. Water drain is also visible. The bathing pool is surrounded by galleries where musicians and dancers or court artists could perform to entertain queens while they are having good time. The first floor is pavilions for queens to relax and enjoy outside view.
There are 24 domes in queen's bath. They were decorated with flora, fauna (birds) designs. The Indo-Islamic architecture is clearly visible from the design of arches at various places. The arches are seen every where in queen's bath. In four corners one can see holes which may have been there to have pillars to support wooden roof. The Indo-Islamic style of architecture can be the reason for surviving of queens bath from the invaders' onslaught. Inside of few domes.
From Queen's bath we moved on to the palace ground. The ground is surrounded by a thick stone wall, may be 8-10 feet in height, and crumbled in places. The wall is gradually tapering from bottom to top, possibly to make it self supporting structure as we don't see in between pillars. On the left side of the entrance one of the three watch towers is seen.
These watch towers were used by the security guards to protect palace grounds. Incidentally the treasury building was also in the same compound. The house like structure seen behind the tree in the left corner of the picture is the place where treasury building used to be.
The other two watch towers are also visible as you proceed further towards Queens' palace (Krushnadevaraya had 3 queens) or rather plinth of the Queens' palace. One of them is overlooking Queens' palace. The guards were predominantly transgenders who were employed to protect Krushnadevaraya's janan khana (queens' residence or enclosure).
The plinth of the Queens' palace gives fair idea of the majestic, grand royal structure once stood there. From the description of the travelers back then, who were in large numbers, Hampi being a trade center, helped artists to paint the picture of the palace. Our guide had album of all such paintings and felt proud while showing them along with his commentary. The palace was a wooden structure made up entirely of sandal wood with gold and silver used for moldings. The precious stones where used for decorative knobs and handles. Silk, rich textile and fabric served to heightened the grandeur of the place, reflecting splendor and power of the king.
The palace being a wooden structure it was far more easier for the invaders to destroy it completely after looting the valuables. While wondering how the carpentry work would have been on sandal wood pillars, roof, windows and door frames we were approaching another architectural marvel Lotus Mahal (palace). On the way to our right we could see the ruins (or rather the place) of another mahal known as Jal mahal, possibly a pool. Jal mahal was used by Queens whenever King was out of the palace as the Queen's bath is outside the guarded palace ground.
The Lotus mahal was the summer abode for the royal family. The construction is in typical Indo-Islamic style. The curves of the building reflect Islamic influence and protects the palace from harsh weather. It is two storied structure both with arched openings in multiple planes. There are 8 (eight) pyramidal towers in all corners with one big tower in the middle of the structure, supported by 24 pillars. The pyramidal tower is influenced by Indian style of architecture. The building has a water storage on the top and the water is circulated through terracotta pipes in the pillars with holes drilled in pipes to allow the water to sprinkle on walls and as the air passed over these walls the inner parts of the palace were cooled. On the pillars and walls stone slabs are placed to place the oil lamps at night.
These photographs show the complexity of design and the beauty of the structure even after more than 600 years.
We had group photo session around the Lotus Mahal (climbing or going inside the building is prohibited for obvious reasons). To our surprise, Nagaraj our guide turned out to be a skilled photographer with unique ability to see the world through a creative lens and capture angles, which others may simply miss.
The next destination was Elephants' stable (Gaj Shala).
As we walked towards the stable trying to imagine the size of the stable of Elephants, at a far distance on top of the boulders we saw sentry point overlooking the palace ground. Obvious question was how sentry would spot enemy approaching the palace from such a distance and at night in particular. The technique was quite innovative. Multi-pronged thorns prepared by village blacksmiths were buried under thin layer of soil with one or more spikes pointing upwards. After the trap thick layer of dry fine white ash was spread. As the intruder(s) (who will be unaware of such traps) steps on the thorns his immediate reaction would be to jump and try to get away from the pain. His efforts will ruffle the ash, ballooning in a white cloud, which can be seen even in night light from a distance and action started.
As we came close to the elephant stable, what we saw was amazing. The building was massive and could accommodate 11 elephants. The architecture is of mixed style. Some of the 10 domes display Islamic influence, others are in Buddhist style finding resemblance to Stupa or Vihara and the central Shikhar is in Indian style, which is mostly destroyed. Adoption of such styles of architecture indicates secular, tolerant, forbearing approach of the then rulers towards all the religions.
These elephants were royal elephants and not the army elephants. Elephants were used in festival processions such as Dusshera procession, Jambu sawari and other Royal occasions. These elephants would carry gold ambari ( The "ambari" is a howdah on the back of the elephant for royal riders) weighting more than 250kgs. On 9 elephants will be placed Navdurgas (Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri, and Siddhidhatri), on 10th will be placed Bhuvanesvari family deity of Krushnadevaray and the Royal family will mount on the last elephant.
The stables are West facing to ensure cooler air in summer to maintain the temperature in the stables. The domes had another purpose. The height of the domes offered better ventilation keeping gaj shala cool. Whenever elephants used to be in musth it would start trumpeting loudly and become aggressive. The trumpeting noise will echo in the domes and sound much louder to the elephant, effectively calming them.
In order to mount and unmount the elephants royal family required a platform, the same was provided near the elephant stable. It is worth watching how well it was designed and beautified, with pavilions below to wait for or relax after the ride.
The ground around the stable was used as a training ground for soldiers. Compound wall carries some indicative carvings one showing direction of water source by a fish and two sparing soldiers as if being trained.
We had to decide where to go next, one of the option was Hazara Rama mandir (Hazara - thousand) and another was Malyavanta Raghunath temple or Malayavant Raghunath Swami temple.
We decided on Hazara Rama mandir. This was a Royal temple, built by Royal family. Dedicated for worshiping and festivities by the Royal family members.
The temple was built in early 15th century by Krushnadevaraya and was very simple with garbhagriha and ardh sabhamandap. The temple wall has band of panels in three rows. Each panel has incidents from Ramayana carved on them in chronological order of events. If someone circumambulates the temple three times in clockwise direction he would witness entire Ramayana on the temple walls.
Unfortunately, we were so engrossed in watching the temple and listening to the Ramayana from Nagaraj that not many photos were taken except few carvings on the pillars of the temple.
Sculptures of Sri Ram, Laxman and Sita with Hanumana, Krishna in the form of Bal Krishna, Murali Krishna are seen carved on the pillars in the picture.
The compound walls are beautifully carved again in multiple bands of panels holding sculptures of dancers, musicians, elephants, camels and horses.
From there we moved on to the Malayavant Raghunath temple. The temple is located on Malayavant Paravat (Mountain).
This is probably the only temple where Sri Ram is seen in sitting posture. As the story goes. Sri Ram on his way to Sri Lanka stayed here during rainy season, chaturmasa (4 months period of Vedic calendar that is considered auspicious for spiritual practices, fasting, and devotion).
This was the place where Hnumana brought chudamani (crest jewel) of Sita after paying visit to her in Ashok Vatika in Sri Lanka and gave it to Sri Ram.
We walked behind the temple to reach the top of the mountain from where we could witness beautiful Sun set on the Vijayanagara Empire to end the memorable day 1 at Hampi.
Tomorrow morning we are planning to visit Anjaneyadri Hill located near Hampi, is believed to be birth place of Hanuman also known as Anjaneya. There is Hanuman temple on the top. To reach the top one has to climb 575 steps. We will start at 6 am tomorrow. More in my next blog.
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