Having spent the first ten days of our whirlwind tour of India immersed in bustling cities, innovative tech startups and vibrant streetscapes, I was not prepared for how dramatically different our next destination would be.
Instead of bright neon lights and honking auto-rickshaws, Hampi was an expansive green landscape of rice-paddy fields and palm trees, interrupted only by towering mountains of red granite boulders. But in my opinion, the true beauty of Hampi lies not with its idyllic nature but its breathtaking ruins.
Hampi was capital of the mighty Vijayanagara Empire and the second-largest city in the world in the early 16th century. Its spice, silk, and jewel-filled central market attracted travellers from as far away as Persia and Portugal, and its stone foundations still stretch more than half a kilometre across today. The Zenanna or women’s enclosure had more than seven opulent buildings for the queen and her attendants, including the imperial treasury, two baths, a regal palace called Jal Mahal, and the still-intact Lotus Mahal. However, the vast wealth of the Vijayanagara Empire was not enough to save it from its enemies, and the capital was ransacked over a period of six months in 1565.
Abandoned, yet preserved in a dilapidated form, Hampi feels like the Acropolis’ neglected, but much larger, half brother. Its empty colonnades and winding passageways let you feel like you have entered an Indiana Jones movie. For all of us lucky enough to be there, visiting Hampi was truly a privilege.
In history, we are trained to look beyond what we see in front of us and consider not just what happened, but the negative space in between – the alternate pasts, untaken paths, and future possibilities. The fact that after five years of studying history in New Zealand I had not even heard of Hampi or the Vijayanagara Empire despite its economic and demographic centrality to Eurasia in the early sixteenth century speaks volumes. It demonstrates my own biases, and the historical narratives common in the West more generally. More significantly however, it speaks to the future possibilities of greater engagement with India, a future story with more twists and turns than an Indiana Jones film could ever manage.
