Legends Buried Beneath

Eager to leave no stone unturned in Hampi, Devanshi Mody follows unprecedented trails and inspects every carving and motif.

- Devanshi Mody

History-heaped, myth- imbrued, tremendously- templed, Hampi is flung over lush expanses above which 3.4-billion-year old precambrian boulders billow and balance in terrific yoga poses, as it were. The granite and greenstone terrain is amongst earth’s oldest surfaces. No stone has turned here in aeons… But above it rose one of the most prodigious and prolific expressions of poetry in stone known to mankind, the capital of the mighty Vijayanagar Empire that ruled South India for 229 years (1336-1565). Empyrean stones were, however, turned on their heads, so to speak, as Invaders savaged the temples in the fallen bastion of Hinduism and heedlessly beheaded every Hindu idol. Headless Hindu gods today preside with tragic dignity atop towering temples, their unamputated hands (if any) still raised in blessing over dispersed ruins, many of which remain unexcavated or carpeted in banana plantations locals have cultivated over a forgotten kingdom.