Anila Verghese. Hampi. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. xiii + 95 pp. $26.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-565433-2.

Reviewed by Shobita Punja

Published on H-Asia (May, 2004)

India has twenty-four World Heritage sites neighborhood, and lots of information on why that have been nominated under the UNESCO and how to see the sites. World Heritage Sites program. Italy has over thir‐ The range of guide books that one fnds in In‐ ty-six UNESCO nominated sites and even that dia start with the expensive DK Eyewitness or seems too meager for a country with heritage Eicher guides that are glossy and have content buildings "considered to be of outstanding value that is brisk and light with excessive tourist infor‐ to humanity." The idea behind the Oxford Univer‐ mation and advice on carrying your own water sity Press Monumental Legacy series was to pro‐ bottle and that sort of stuf. duce "brief books" on each of the Indian World Then there are the "cofee table books" that Heritage sites, says the series editor. A worthy mo‐ no sane traveler would take along on a trek to see tive but inadequate on many accounts. The World the sites. The OUP series is not cheap by Indian Heritage sites in India are under the protection of standards. They also seem to fall between two the ASI (the Archaeological Survey of India set up stools. The writers and the series editor in this by the British in colonial times). ASI produces lit‐ case are all knowledgeable academics, deeply im‐ tle booklets that are sold at their sites; these are mersed in their feld of study, who fnd it very dif‐ dry and boring to read but academic and accu‐ fcult, if not occasionally outrageous, to write a rate. They are not reader-friendly but are very ad‐ mere paragraph on a building that they believe to equate, if you want to know the facts and fgures. be of "outstanding value to humanity." Anila Now the "intelligent reader" who is not an Verghese's brief book on Hampi is very compe‐ "academic" needs a more reader-friendly packag‐ tently written. She has spent several years (since ing that provides information on where to stay, 1985) as a scholar working on Hampi and this maps, plans, diagrams, stories and legends, infor‐ book seems too brief and leaves you asking for mation on the geography and what to see in the more. The book is sparsely illustrated with black- and-white pictures and inset with a few glossy H-Net Reviews pages of color photographs, maps, and architec‐ the boulders and the emerging buildings made of tural plans of major temples and buildings. The the same material, in many cases in-situ, must book begins with an overview and a chapter dis‐ have created a vision of a world in harmony with cussing the historic context of the site followed by its surroundings. Today the paint has gone and description of the various zones and the monu‐ the hand of nature and that of the artist-architect ments within each, and ends with an outline of blend in an artistic mirage. Hampi as an archaeological site and some practi‐ Most art lovers enjoy the unveiling of layers cal tips for the visitor on where to stay and how to of history and meaning and discovering the mys‐ get there. A welcome glossary and bibliography teries of art appreciation. At Hampi there are sev‐ serve to bring you up date with the latest re‐ eral historic layers that add to its fascination. Be‐ search. fore the powerful Vijayanagara kings chose it as a Verghese has kept her style balanced and seri‐ capital, Hampi was steeped in myth and legend. ous, with no special attention to any one building. Even today the local boys will tell you quite con‐ She stays within her publisher's brief but pro‐ vincingly, pointing to an exact point on the vides a short bibliography of books and academic ground or tank or hill, that this is where the gods treatises on Hampi, should any visitor want to descended to marry, to bathe and meditate. know more. It is heartwarming to know that so Hampi is also linked with the epic Ramayana, much work has been done on Hampi, for it is tru‐ which describes the life of Ram, believed to be an ly one of the most extraordinary sites of the avatar (manifestation) of Vishnu. When Ravan, world. the king of Lanka kidnapped Ram's wife Sita from Nothing can quite prepare you for the surreal the forest where they were living in exile he took landscape of Hampi. The village is situated on the the beautiful exiled queen to Lanka. Ram with his southern bank of the Tungabhadra River, in Bel‐ brother went in search of Sita and it is believed lary district of the southern state of Karnataka in that at various locations in the Hampi region he India. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara king‐ encountered the monkey king and and the much- dom from the mid-fourteenth century to the mid- loved Hanuman, who became his faithful ally and sixteenth century. As you enter the site great fnally found Sita in captivity in Lanka. The neigh‐ mountains of granite rock burst out of the earth boring town of Anegondi is reputed to be the and gargantuan boulders stand precariously on birthplace of Hanuman or Anjaneya; the Malya‐ each other--as if frozen in the act of tumbling for vanta hill marks the place where Ram and Laksh‐ centuries. man stayed and therefore is crowned by the large From this topsy-turvy landscape the organic Raghunatha Temple. forms of the temples and palaces can barely be This mythical landscape comes briefy into discerned; they play hide-and-seek behind the the purview of the book and is captivating, for it boulders, sometimes eclipsed by low hills from speaks of an Indian ability (though sometimes which the buildings appear to grow. It is here that dangerous) to create a microcosm out of the one witnesses a moment of perfect synthesis--of wider universe. So a little hill called Hemakunta buildings and the landscape, the rock and the refers to the high Himalayas many miles away carving. Hampi is enormous and the landscape of and the entire story of one episode of the myth of rolling rocks, boulders, and the heritage site Shiva is enacted here on a diminutive scale. The spreads over 25 square kilometers. Hemakunta hill leads to the great Virupaksha Even in its heyday when the temples were temple where each year the marriage of Shiva brightly painted with mineral colors the magic of and the local goddess Pampa is conducted in the

2 H-Net Reviews very same way as a human wedding, following The sacred center lies to the south of the every detail of ancient Vedic rites. In fact the Tungabadra River. The highest concentration of whole landscape in and around Hampi is dotted small and large temples is found here. These in‐ with sites where many communities perform ritu‐ clude the Virupaksha temple, the gigantic 6.7-me‐ als, for this to them is a sacred landscape from ter-high monolithic statue of Narasimha, the half- time immemorial. lion, half-man avatar of Vishnu, the Krishna tem‐ Much of this does not concern the academic ple that lies beside the two sacred hillocks of the art historian but local legends do have validity Hemakunta and the Matanga Hill. Verghese writes and enable us to understand the "living signif‐ in a clear and easy style about these sites and cance" of a site. While royal temples and palaces briefy mentions architectural details, giving and audience halls lie broken and ruined, the pas‐ stylistic references and iconographic information. sage of time does not seem to erase the mythologi‐ The remains of the Hampi bazaar that leads cal signifcance of a site and that part outlives the up to the Virupaksha temple continue to be used, rest by far. as this is where pilgrims buy oferings of fowers, The dangerous side of this frail line between incense, and mementoes before entering the tem‐ myth and history or fact and legend is that the ple. two have for political reasons been mixed and of‐ The Islamic quarter, as she calls it, lies on the ten confused. In 1992 when Hindu fanatics broke slope of the Malyavanta hill and marks the north‐ down the historic Muslim mosque in Ayodhya, ern boundary of the urban core where one can they did so in the belief that it stood on the very see the magnifcent fort walls in dressed stone, place where the legendary Ram had been born, the elephant stables and the strange buildings and politicians claimed that the myth was a his‐ now called the Lotus Mahal, and others whose ex‐ torical fact. act function remains a mystery. There are the im‐ However, for us in the feld of heritage con‐ pressive stone bases of several grand public build‐ servation, the very demarcation of the World Her‐ ings whose wooden superstructures have long itage Site is inappropriate at Hampi. The UNESCO since disappeared. It is buildings like the Ma‐ declaration of what constitutes the site for protec‐ hanavami Platform that give Hampi the air of tion encompasses merely the heritage buildings grandeur. While there are several contemporary and known historic structures rather than the forts and palaces contemporary to Hampi and whole living fabric of this strange and mythical built by Islamic rulers, Hampi is one of the rare landscape where every rock appears to have examples of a Hindu royal fort and capital with some meaning for some nearby community. A palaces and temples, streets and bazaars, and heritage site needs to embrace high art and the where much of the sacred and urban centers still "little traditions" that still give soul and meaning lie intact. to the place, long after the historic signifcance of This informative book is by a very competent the site has disappeared. author and the series are useful guides but so The city of Vijayanagara, meaning the city of much still needs to be done to make Indian art victory, afectionately also called Hampi, has been history come alive. One looks forward to a day divided into four uninspiring "functional zones" when the poetry of Indian architecture is translat‐ by archaeologists to "facilitate documentation": ed through image and text not into prose, but into the "sacred center," the "intermediate irrigated some form of poetry, so that none of the magic or valley," the "urban core," and the "suburban cen‐ layers of meaning get lost in translation. ters."

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Citation: Shobita Punja. Review of Verghese, Anila. Hampi. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. May, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9338

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