Hampi: Program in Architectural History & Heritage

Arrivals & Introduction

Evening lecture at hotel to introduce the group to the site.

Morning: How did builders make nature into culture?

Sites: The Tungabhadra River and Hemakuta Hill

The Tunga and the Bhadra rivers merge at the mid-level of the Western Ghats near Shimoga and flow north towards Hampi where it turns south and then east to join the Krishna River which flows ultimately into the Bay of Bengal. A Kannada saying goes Tunga paana, Ganga snaana or “drink the waters of the Tunga and bathe in the Ganga” which indicates the importance of this river and the pilgrimage sites along it. Hampi is the most important such pilgrimage center, and we will spend time walking along the river and climbing up Hemakuta hill. The sacred river, worshipped as the river goddess Pampa, and the god of Hemakuta, Shiva Mahakala, the great god beyond time, were united by the movement of worshippers and by the architecture that followed.

Post Lunch: How to make the old new and what is sacred about the sacred?

Sites: Virupaksha temple and its environs, Badavi Linga, Narasimha and Krishna temple

Virupaksha, “he of the malformed eyes,” is the form of Shiva worshipped at Hampi. We explore this large temple complex and discuss how the architecture transformed over centuries to accommodate the expansion of the god’s personality and the cult that united him in matrimony with goddess Pampa as well as his transformation into the god of the Vijayanagara state. We also visit the Poor Woman’s Linga, a gigantic monolith, the broken yet magnificent Narasimha and conclude the day with a walk through the Krishna temple and its elegant bazaar road. We think about sacralized renovation, how shrines live beyond their patrons with the help of ordinary devotees, how the modern state conceives and executes renovation and experience the varying pleasures of walking in straight and curved lines.

Morning: How are stories built?

Sites:Ramachandra temple, Mahanavami Dibba, a Chalukyan stepwell, a goddess and a Jain temple

Rama, Devaraya I, dancers,goddesses, Dasara, foreign visitors, performers, Jain military leaders over the course of Vijayanagara’s 230-yearhistory at Hampi, architects and patrons took multiple narratives and made them converge in buildings. The buildings themselves then began to tell stories. We will study these processes as they unfolded.

Post Lunch:When temple builders build mosques and tombs, what do they learn and how do they transform design?

Sites: Ahmad Khan’s Mosque, tombs and palace complex

It is received knowledge to see Vijayanagara as the last Hindu empire. But how did patrons of architecture see architectural tradition and building skills as dynamic resources for designing structures that would help them better honour their gods, themselves and give them knew ways to play with form and space? We see buildings that allow us to move away from conventional thought and see period-specific creativity in practice.

Morning: The evolution of pre-Vijayanagara settlement over 900 years

Site: Anegundi

Potters in Anegundi once commissioned inscribed copper plates that made the mud pot the central actor in the Churning of the Cosmic Ocean story. That pot was made in their village. Later, Anegundi became a satellite royal center for a branch of the Vijayanagara royal family. Today, it is a living village in which fantasies of living heritage become enacted and relocated in a tourist economy. As the world turns, Anegundi too has changed and we spend time walking through this complex, yet charming settlement while addressing relevant yet hard questions.

Post Lunch:The hypostyle hall and architecture that performs

Site: Vithala temple

This vast temple complex dedicated to the tribal god Vithala is a complex of mandapas or hypostyle halls that were built to hold a variety of performances. In the process, architects created buildings that also performed. The grand, multi-pillared hall was transformed into a place which could congregations and in the process form new relationships between devotees and hold between them and gods. We visit this temple and discuss how this might have happened.