Final Reflection

My trip to Hampi was a very interesting one. When I first stepped foot on to the sacred land that was once the capital of the great Vijayanagara Empire and now the homes of one of the major pilgrimage sites, I was surprised. It was a weekday and a rather hot one, but there were many people. I kept going to Hampi for six consecutive days and not even once did it feel like there were people less on a certain day.  There were people everywhere. Even in temples like Vitthala, that was a very long walk away. The place was buzzing with tourists and people from nearby cities. The temples, the restaurants, the boats that lead to the Hampi, there were people around all the time. And just like me, I am sure they too were mesmerised by this land just like me.

Hampi had many stories to tell. Many more than I could hear I am sure, since I had a hard time communicating with the locals as they mostly spoke in Kannada. But the stories I heard were good enough to get me interested. During my time there, I heard a lot about what Hampi used to be. About it’s great ambience and how the people would come to Hampi each year for its yearly festival and how happily the locals stayed together. I also heard about how people’s houses were demolished and people were forced to pack their belongings and move out of the homes they had stayed in forever. It was UNESCO’s interference in the area that displaced all these people. Though not many hold any hostile feelings against this major organisation, there are many who find it strange as to why they were forced out of the place that they had been living in for such a long time, the place where they had been born and grown up in. They felt that they had a right to Hampi much more than these government organisations. This got me thinking, UNESCO’s aim was to conserve Hampi and its ruins from further deterioration. They came to conserve and preserve the ethos and culture of Hampi…but aren’t the natives, the locals a major part of it? Don’t the people itself create the culture of a place? By throwing them out, weren’t they destroying the essence of Hampi? The Hampi I saw was filled with tourists and shops & people trying to sell you the grandeur of Hampi which has been reducing as days pass. Hampi is now only half as mesmerising as it used to be. The temples barely have people praying and though the monumental beauty remains, the atmosphere of the place is not as active and attractive as it once was.

I can only imagine what Hampi once was by hearing the stories, looking at photos and reading the articles that I have. I feel sorry for the people who have been displaced from their homes but at the same time, Hampi still is a place one should visit at least once in their lifetime, for whatever is left of the beautiful land in ruins. 

The Reducing Grandeur of Hampi

The Virupaksha Temple (above) was built on the command of Lakkana Dandesha who was a chieftain under Deva Raya II. The temple has three gopurams and the major deity of the temple is Virupaksha, who is a form of Shiva. Other than Virupaksha there is also a shrine dedicated to Pampadevi who is said to his spouse.

The temple is always buzzing with crowds throughout the week; there are families who worship Virupaksha, often come for pilgrimage purposes. They take dip in the river of Tungabhadra, walk till the temple and offer their prayers, dry their clothes and have food. You could also find men who were Anjaneya followers, there on pilgrimage for the 41 day fast for Lord Anjaneya also known as Lord Hanuman.

There are large signboards the moment you enter into the temple giving instructions in Kannada. There is a price of 2 rupees per head to enter the temple for Indians while for foreigners it is 500 per head. In order to shoot pictures, you need to pay 50 rupees and before entering the temple you can see stalls selling things required to conduct rituals as well as small souvenirs for tourists. Once you enter the temple you can see how busy people are taking out their cell phones to click snaps of the place and take selfies with the background of the temple. On the left side is a mantapa where there is an elephant. Elephants are considered an important part of the Hindu religion. But here, people can be seen simply crowding around the elephant to get a picture or a touch. It makes one wonder if they know its true importance. The entire atmosphere is not that of a place for worship rather than just another monument for tourists.

You can see people go inside the main temple, where the deity is kept and photography is prohibited. There are always large crowds trying to get a glance of the idol of Lord Virupaksha. You barely get to spend a minute and pray and get prasad before you are pushed out of the temple.

This very clearly shows the increasing commercialisation that has been taking place in Hampi for the past few years. The sacred place is gradually losing it's essence as a pilgrimage place and becoming more of just another tourist spot.

The Tungabhadra

The Tungabhadra river in different parts of Hampi

Animals Seen In Hampi

Two monkeys enjoying a banana 

A langoor

A statue of Nandi the bull, the transportation of Lord Shiva

The elephant from the Virupaksha Temple having a bath

The Vijaynagara Empire is also known as the ‘Land of Monkeys’, so it was not at all surprising when I went there and saw the many monkeys and langoors in the many temples that we visited. The monkeys who sat on the roofs of structures inside the temples, were very smart and knew that whenever a person would enter the temple, they would have their offering to the gods which included bananas along with flowers etc, so they would wait patiently till someone vulnerable would walk in so they could quickly snatch it from their hands and devour whatever was inside. The monkeys were often seen fighting with each other and trying to scare the people, but on the other hand, the langoors which are supposed to be much less smarter than the monkeys, were calm and collected and never responded to the jeers of the monkeys, who often tried to provoke them.

I also noticed many, many cows and bulls being touched affectionately and taken blessings from the temple. Cows are considered holy according to Hinduism, so that was not a surprise.

Another animal, which was kept inside the temple was the elephant. That was one of the major attractions to the temple other than its history and beautiful architecture. The elephant looked well trained and well behaved, as it listened to its trainer and never went out of line. There were people always crowding around the elephant whenever I passed that area of the temple. The elephant too is considered a holy animal, one of the reasons being it being the animal that lord Indra rode. 

Stories on The Pillars and Walls

Rock carvings seen as you enter Hampi

Narasimha

A dancer

A god

Through my time spent exploring Hampi, in almost every place I went, I saw different kinds of carvings. They were of curvy men and women, with large headgears, or of creatures who seemed part animal and part human like, of what could have been Gods and Goddesses’ and symbols and shapes that I could not decipher. There were places where there were relics of dancing and singing people, and animals and other interesting carvings.

One of the most common carvings I saw in Hampi was the structure of that of Narasimha, one of the ten avatars of God Vishnu, who is worshiped throughout India.

These carvings, made me deeply wonder about the history and the stories that could have been attached to these stone structures on these ancient walls.

Through a Tourist's Eyes

The day we reached the city of Hospete, after a small rest we headed out to explore Hampi with the eyes of a tourist. It was most of our first time in Hampi, so we all started from the Kishkinda resort -where we stayed- to the temple town of Hampi which was about a kilometer away through auto and a small boat ride across river Tungabhadra.

We were greeted by various men offering us tour guides, autos, maps and as we walked up the stairs through a way with stalls on both sides, there were people trying to sell us items with different offers. There were many other tourists who were being swept away by these offers but we had our facilitators as our guides. The place was buzzing with tourists even though it was a Monday morning. The first place we visited was the famous Virupaksha temple, it was a sight to behold. The first thing I noticed were the many intricate carvings on the gopuram, they really made it stand out. It made me wonder what they were trying to depict. Since photography was only permitted after giving a fee of 50 rupees, I only clicked photographs on our second last day in Hampi.

We also walked to some other places that day, most of them being temples. We visited Hemakuta Hill temple, the Monolithic Bull, Achutaraya Temple -which was a little isolated, Kadelekalu Ganesha Temple and the monolithic Narasimha,

It was a day where we were to simply spend the day looking at the structures without too much thinking, though I am sure by the end of the day after so many visits, there were certain questions that may have arisen in many of our minds. It is hard not to when you are in a place so rich in culture and history.

First Impressions

When the trip was first announced, in my mind I had no expectations. As Hampi was a place that I had learnt about in my past, as the capital of the great Vijayanagar empire. I had read about the stories of the great kings and the even greater temples that they had built in the name of their gods. Yet as I did not want my assumptions to ruin this expedition for me, I left for Hampi with absolutely no presumptions.

Though not easily excited, when we arrived at the ruins of the Virupaksha temple, I was mesmereised by the beauty of the temple. There were parts of the Gopuram were destroyed, probably by the past Mughal invasions.

The eight days spent in Hampi were truly enlightening and it has made me understand in depth about the thoughts of people about Hampi and it's present condition as a world heritage sight.