A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar by Robert Sewell (read a book TXT) 📖

to Bracciolini — The capital — Festivals — Immense population — Abdur Razzak’s description — His journey — The walls — Palaces — The Mint — Bazaars — The great Mahahnavami festival.

It will be well to suspend our historical narrative for a time in order to acquire some idea of the appearance and condition of the great city of Vijayanagar in these days. We have already noticed that as early as 1375 A.D. Sultan Mujahid of Kulbarga had heard so much of the beauty of this capital that he desired to see it, and it had grown in importance and grandeur during the succeeding half-century. About the year 1420 or 1421 A.D. there visited Vijayanagar one Nicolo, an Italian, commonly called Nicolo Conti or Nicolo dei Conti, and if he was not the earliest European visitor, he was at least the earliest that we know of whose description of the place has survived to this day. His visit must have taken place shortly after the accession of Deva Raya II. Nicolo never apparently wrote anything himself. His stories were recorded in Latin by Poggio Bracciolini, the Pope’s secretary, for his master’s information. Translated into Portuguese, they were re-translated from the Portuguese into Italian by Ramusio, who searched for but failed to obtain a copy of the original in Latin. This original was first published in 1723 by the Abbe Oliva of Paris under the title P. BRACCIOLINI, DE VARIETATE FORTUNAE, LIBER QUATUOR.

Nicolo, on reaching India, visited first the city of Cambaya in Gujarat. After twenty days’ sojourn there he passed down the coast to “Pacamuria,” probably Barkur, and “Helly,” which is the “Mount d’Ely” or “Cabo d’Eli” of later writers. Thence he travelled inland and reached the Raya’s capital, Vijayanagar, which he calls “Bizenegalia.”[125] He begins his description thus: —

“The great city of Bizenegalia is situated near very steep mountains. The circumference of the city is sixty miles; its walls are carried up to the mountains and enclose the valleys at their foot, so that its extent is thereby increased. In this city there are estimated to be ninety thousand men fit to bear arms.”

I must here interpose a correction. There were no “mountains” properly so called at Vijayanagar; only a confused and tumbled mass of rocky hills, some rising to considerable altitude. The extent of its lines of defences was extraordinary. Lofty and massive stone walls everywhere crossed the valleys, and led up to and mounted over the hillsides. The outer lines stretched unbroken across the level country for several miles. The hollows and valleys between the boulder-covered heights were filled with habitations, poor and squalid doubtless, in most instances, but interspersed with the stone-built dwellings of the nobles, merchants, and upper classes of the vast community; except where the elaborately constructed water-channels of the Rayas enabled the land to be irrigated; and in these parts rich gardens and woods, and luxurious crops of rice and sugar-cane, abounded. Here and there were wonderfully carved temples and fanes to Hindu deities, with Brahmanical colleges and schools attached to the more important amongst their number.

As to the appearance of the scenery, I cannot do better than quote the description given in 1845 by a distinguished South-Indian geologist, Lieutenant Newbold:[126] —

“The whole of the extensive site occupied by the ruins of Bijanugger on the south bank of the Tumbuddra, and of its suburb Annegundi on the northern bank, is occupied by great bare piles and bosses of granite and granitoidal gneiss, separated by rocky defiles and narrow rugged valleys encumbered by precipitated masses of rock. Some of the larger flat-bottomed valleys are irrigated by aqueducts from the river…. The peaks, tors, and logging-stones of Bijanugger and Annegundi indent the horizon in picturesque confusion, and are scarcely to be distinguished from the more artificial ruins of the ancient metropolis of the Deccan, which are usually constructed with blocks quarried from their sides, and vie in grotesqueness of outline and massiveness of character with the alternate airiness and solidity exhibited by nature in the nicely-poised logging stones and columnar piles, and in the walls of prodigious cuboidal blocks of granite which often crest and top her massive domes and ridges in natural cyclopean masonry.”

The remains of palaces, temples, walls, and gateways are still to be seen, and these abound not only on the site of Vijayanagar proper, but also on the north side of the swiftly rushing river, where stood the stately citadel of Anegundi, the mother of the empire-city. The population of this double city was immense, and the area occupied by it very extensive. From the last fortification to the south, beyond the present town of Hospett, to the extreme point of the defences of Anegundi on the north, the distance is about twelve miles. From the extreme western line of walls in the plain to the last of the eastern works amongst the hills lying in the direction of Daroji and Kampli the interval measures about ten miles. Within this area we find the remains of the structures of which I have spoken. The hovels have disappeared, and the debris lies many feet thick over the old ground-level. But the channels are still in working order, and wherever they exist will be found rich crops, tall and stately trees, and a tangle of luxuriant vegetation. On the rocks above are the ruins of buildings and temples and walls, and in many places small shrines stand out, built on the jutting edges of great boulders or on the pinnacles of lofty crags, in places that would seem inaccessible to anything but monkeys and birds.

In the central enclosure are the remains of great structures that must once have been remarkable for their grandeur and dignity. These immediately surrounded the king’s palace; but in 1565 the Muhammadans worked their savage will upon them with such effect that only the crumbling ruins of the more massive edifices amongst them still stand. The site of the palace itself is marked by a large area of ground covered with heaps of broken blocks, crushed masonry, and fragments of sculpture, not one stone being left upon another in its original position.

To return to Nicolo. He continues: —

“The inhabitants of this region marry as many wives as they please, who are burnt with their dead husbands. Their king is more powerful than all the other kings of India. He takes to himself 12,000 wives, of whom 4000 follow him on foot wherever he may go, and are employed solely in the service of the kitchen. A like number, more handsomely equipped, ride on horseback. The remainder are carried by men in litters, of whom 2000 or 3000 are selected as his wives on condition that at his death they should voluntarily burn themselves with him, which is considered to be a great honour for them….

“At a certain time of the year their idol is carried through the city, placed between two chariots, in which are young women richly adorned, who sing hymns to the god, and accompanied by a great concourse of people. Many, carried away by the fervour of their faith, cast themselves on the ground before the wheels, in order that they may be crushed to death — a mode of death which they say is very acceptable to their god. Others, making an incision in their side, and inserting a rope thus through their body, hang themselves to the chariot by Nay of ornament, and thus suspended and half-dead accompany their idol. This kind of sacrifice they consider the best and most acceptable of all.

“Thrice in the year they keep festivals of especial solemnity. On one of these occasions the males and females of all ages, having bathed in the rivers or the sea, clothe themselves in new garments, and spend three entire days in singing, dancing, and feasting. On another of these festivals they fix up within their temples, and on the outside on the roofs, an innumerable number of lamps of oil of SUSIMANNI, which are kept burning day and night. On the third, which lasts nine days, they set up in all the highways large beams, like the masts of small ships, to the upper part of which are attached pieces of very beautiful cloth of various kinds, interwoven with gold. On the summit of each of these beams is each day placed a man of pious aspect, dedicated to religion, capable of enduring all things with equanimity, who is to pray for the favour of God. These men are assailed by the people, who pelt them with oranges, lemons, and other odoriferous fruits, all which they bear most patiently. There are also three other festival days, during which they sprinkle all passers-by, even the king and queen themselves, with saffron water, placed for that purpose by the wayside. This is received by all with much laughter.”

The first of these festivals may be the Kanarese New Year’s Day, which Domingo Paes in his chronicle asserts to have fallen, during his visit to Vijayanagar, on October 12 — “FESTAS EM QUE TODOS VESTEM PANOS NOVOS E RICOS E GALANTES, E CADA HUU COMO O TEM, E DAO TODOS OS CAPITAEES PANOS A TODA SUA GNETE DE MUYTAS CORES E GALANTES.”[127] The second should be the Dipavali festival, which occurs about the month of October, when lamps are lighted by all the householders, and the temples are illuminated. The description of the third answers to the nine-days’ festival, called the MAHANAVAMI, at Vijayanagar, which, during the visit of Paes, took place on September 12. The other feast of three days’ duration answers to the HOLI festival.

Conti next describes the finding of diamonds on a mountain which he called “Albenigaras” and places fifteen days’ journey beyond Vijayanagar “towards the north.” He repeats the story which we know as that of “Sinbad the Sailor,” saying that the diamonds lie in inaccessible valleys, into which lumps of flesh being thrown, to which the precious stones adhere, these are carried up TO the summits by eagles, which are then driven off and the stones secured. The direction given, though it should rather be east than north, points to the mines on the Krishna river being those alluded to — mines which are often styled the “mines of Golkonda” by travellers. Marco Polo told the same tale of the same mines in the year 1296. Conti continues: —

“They divide the year into twelve months, which they name after the signs of the zodiac. The era is computed variously….”

After having given a short account of the different coinages and currencies, which is interesting, but of which the various localities are left to the imagination, he writes: —

“The natives of Central India make use of the ballistae,[128] and those machines which we call bombardas, also other warlike implements adapted for besieging cities.

“They call us Franks and say, ‘While they call other nations blind, that they themselves have two eyes, and that we have but one, because they consider that they excel all others in prudence.’[129]

“The inhabitants of Cambay alone use paper; all other Indians write on the leaves of trees. They have a vast number of slaves, and, the debtor who is insolvent is everywhere adjudged to be the property of his creditor. The numbers of these people and nations exceeds belief. Their armies consist of a million men and upwards.”

Abdur Razzak also visited, the city during the reign of Deva Raya II., but about twenty years later than Conti. He was entrusted with an embassy from Persia, and set out on his mission on January 13, A.D. 1442. At the beginning of November that year he arrived at Calicut, where he resided till the beginning of April 1443. Being there he was summoned to Vijayanagar, travelled thither, and was in the great city from the end of April till the 5th December of the same year.