Framed by an otherworldly landscape of boulder-strewn hills, Hampi, the once-great city of Vijayanagara, is southern India’s answer to Angkor—a realm of evocative ruins that speak to the glories of the subcontinent’s last great Hindu empire.

Photographs by Alistair Taylor-Young

Amid the surreally shaped boulders on Hemakuta Hill, which overlooks the Virupaksha temple complex.

Nothing could have prepared me for my first sight of Hampi. Looking down from the top of Anjanadri Hill as the dawn’s golden light pierced through trails of woodsmoke, I watched as the ghostly ruins began to emerge from a patchwork of paddy fields and banana plantations. The scene was ethereal. Once the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire, Hampi is India’s Angkor: an ancient city of palaces and temples, elephant stables and royal baths whose bleached remains are scattered across more than 4,000 hectares in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

Yet it’s not just the ruins that provoke awe. It is also the landscape. Embraced by the banks of the Tungabhadra River, the rocky terrain around Hampi is cluttered with massive granite boulders that the elements have sculpted into fantastical shapes. Some are stacked in formations that seem to defy gravity; others rise like monolithic sculptures amid the sparse vegetation. Boulders everywhere. I wished I could take one back home and place it outside my bedroom window. My neighbor would be a mountain away.

Given its maze of monuments and temples, it’s extraordinary that such an archeological wonder as Hampi isn’t more visited. Even at the surreally beautiful Evolve Back Kamalapura Palace where I was staying, guests seemed more inclined to submerge themselves in the hotel’s palatial surrounds and indulgent cuisine—in no small part thanks to the genteel ministrations of general manager Mohammad Amarr.

My two days at Hampi were spent with a local guide named Veeresh, who plotted a trail that took in the most glorious ruins as well as numerous sites associated with the great Indian epic Ramayana. According to Hindu tradition, this was the fabled land of Kishkinda, home to Hanuman and his monkey army. As the Ramayana recounts, it was here that the exiled prince Rama allied with the monkeys in his quest to rescue his abducted wife Sita. And all those boulders? Veeresh preferred the mythical explanation: they were thrown here during a battle between the monkey kings Vali and Sugriva.

*Left to right:* A monkey amid the ruins; the braided hair of a girl in Hampi village.

Yet for all its mythical allure, Vijayanagara (as Hampi was earlier known—it means “city of victory”) had once been a real enough place. Medieval European travelers like Domingo Paes extolled the capital of the subcontinent’s last great Hindu empire as one of the richest and most prosperous cities they had ever seen; Abdur Razzaq, a 15th-century Persian scholar who served as an envoy for the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, remarked on the splendor of Vijayanagara’s royal court and palace, describing lavish architecture, advanced irrigation systems, and bustling markets filled with pearls and precious stones.

It all came to an abrupt end in early 1565, when an alliance of Deccan sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara forces at Talikota. The empire’s defeated capital was plundered, and its population of about 300,000 fled. Soon nature took over, farmers moved in, and the city fell to ruins, its great monuments fading into rural obscurity over the next 500 years. What put the area back on the map was its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986, followed by the arrival of the first hotels. Kamalapura Palace, which opened in 2016, is the most luxurious of the lot, located some 10 kilometers south of the main ruins.

It’s a good idea to arrive early at the site, before it gets too crowded and hot. At 8 a.m. we were still the only visitors, allowing us to leisurely marvel at granite walls carved with deer and elephants and seductive figures; the underground rooms where queens escaped the heat; the deep stepped stone pools where priests would bathe before appeasing the gods; and everywhere the aqueducts and canals that once sustained the city.

Washerwomen by a lake at the village of Kamalapura, which lies just outside the original royal center of the old city of Vijayanagara.

The Vittala temple complex is a highlight, with its broken yet beautiful gopuram (gateway tower), pillared halls and pavilions, and shrine to the eagle god Garuda in the form of a stone chariot. Perhaps the most splendid structure is the Maha Mantapa, or great hall, which stands on a richly sculpted granite base to one side of the vast internal courtyard. Unmatched in its craftsmanship, the pavilion once served as a stage for dancers to perform for the king and for the gods. I was fascinated by its mysterious “musical pillars”: slender stone columns that, when tapped, emit the sounds of classical Indian instruments like the ghanta (bell) and damaru (a handheld drum). Forget Spotify. This is where the songlines to life are being played on a loop.

Another walled-off enclosure comprises the zenana, or women’s quarters, an area dedicated to the kings’ wives and concubines. Their numbers could be considerable; Nicolo dei Conti, an Italian who visited Vijayanagara around 1420, counted 12,000 in the royal harem. At the center of the enclosure is the Lotus Mahal, a pavilion of carved domes and arches created as a leisure palace for the queen and her entourage. It’s one of the loveliest monuments in southern India. The Queen’s Bath is nearby, centered on a large open-air pool. It’s bone-dry now, but standing on one of the overhanging balconies, I could almost picture the ladies of the court laughing and splashing in the cool, floral-scented water.

When not depicting narrative reliefs of the Ramayana, the carved friezes and columns of Hampi’s relics convey the vanished splendor of Vijayanagara: contingents of infantry and cavalry, processions of elephants, hunting expeditions and courtly attendants. But life hasn’t entirely abandoned the site. Virupaksha Temple, located at the end of the arcaded avenue that was the old city’s bazaar, has persisted as a place of worship throughout the centuries. Dedicated to Lord Shiva and still intact among the surrounding ruins, it attracts pilgrims who huddle around the shrines and a giant stone statue of the sacred bull, Nandi, for blessings.

Veeresh and I arrived at the temple just in time for the evening puja, as devotees lit oil lamps and priests made offerings of milk, ghee, and honey. Temple musicians and torch bearers brought added vibrancy to the proceedings. It was magical.

A temple caretaker at the Virupaksha complex.

Back at the hotel, after washing off the day’s dust, I headed to the poolside restaurant for a cocktail: a delicious espresso martini made with coffee from plantations run by the Ramapuram family, who also happen to own Evolve Back Resorts. Later, under the glow of an almost full moon, I was presented with the Vijayanagara thali, a colorful assemblage of age-old dishes from northern Karnataka—bale hoovu palya (banana blossom stir-fry); kosambir (a delicious raw lentil salad); thambuli (yogurt curry)—served in little copper bowls and accompanied by aromatic spice powders. It was a regal feast, though too large for one person to get through alone, even after all my temple trekking.

The Kamalapura Palace is strikingly beautiful by day yet really comes to life at night, when hand-lit lanterns cast soft shadows, corridors echo with soul-soothing Carnatic music, and the scent of incense takes you back to a grander time. Surrounded by a Vijayanagara-inspired trove of pointed arches, domes, and floral plasterwork, it was hard to believe that this was not really a heritage property but rather designed from scratch by George Ramapuram, the Bengaluru-based architect who oversees the Evolve Back brand. At the hotel’s Ayurvedic spa, I could almost imagine myself as a Vijayanagara princess surrounded by ladies-in-waiting ready to anoint me with sandalwood oil and turmeric paste.

Fittingly, Amarr had helped arrange an appointment for me the next day with Krishna Devaraya, the descendant of a royal lineage that stretches back 19 generations. Our meeting was in the nearby village of Anegundi, just across the Tungabhadra River, where fishermen cast nets from basket-like coracles. Older even than Hampi, Anegundi served as the first capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, and remained the enclave of a branch of the imperial dynasty right up to 1947, when Krishna Devaraya’s grandfather, the last king, passed away.

The Chintamani temple complex in Anegundi, on the northern bank of the Tungabhadra River.

Anegundi’s regal past has long since been subsumed by rural life. Stacks of bananas sat on the roadside waiting for pickup; mustachioed men chatted about current affairs over cups of chai; kids chased goats through the dusty streets. But amid it all stood the Heere Deewan Mansion, the 250-year-old ancestral residence of the erstwhile royals of Anegundi.

Splendidly restored over the course of five years, the two-story stone building is filled with carved teak pillars and other period details. Over cups of filter coffee in the main hall, Krishna Devaraya, a kind man in his 50s and a mechanical engineer by training, told me, “I spent my childhood in this mansion. It’s a key part of our heritage, and after returning from a long stint in the United States to find it dilapidated, I knew I had to return it to its former glory, whatever the cost.”

He also shared his dismay at the state of Hampi’s ruins, which he feels are not receiving enough money or attention for conservation and restoration work. “The UNESCO status has significantly benefitted the area, but while many protective rules exist, their implementation has been inconsistent,” he explained. “The government is treating Hampi as a dead city, but it still has its soul intact.”

Anegundi is also home to the Kishkinda Trust, which works to empower local women through meaningful employment and socio-economic development. At the organization’s craft workshop, I watched ladies weaving banana fiber into hats, baskets, and other eco-friendly products. I picked up a beautifully crafted sling bag to bring home, doubly pleased by the knowledge that my purchase directly contributed to the artisans’ income.

We drove back to the hotel as the blood moon above transformed into a brilliant white orb. The boulder-packed hills had an eerie aura about them that night, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. There was something in the air that made me feel small yet regal at the same time. Vijayanagara’s kings may be long gone, but the ancient stones of Hampi still have a tale to tell. All you have to do is listen.

Overlooking the 16th-century Achyutaraya temple complex at sunrise.

Hampi Essentials

GETTING THERE

Some 26 kilometers from Hampi, Vidyanagar Airport is connected by Alliance Air to Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

WHERE TO STAY

Evolve Back Kamalapura Palace
While it looks like a heritage property, this gorgeous retreat is a modern-day tribute to the indo-islamic style of architecture of the 14th-century Vijayanagara Empire, with 46 suites inspired by Hampi’s palatial structures. First-rate amenities include an Olympic-size infinity pool that draws inspiration from a pushkarni or ancient temple tank (from US$438 a night).

This article originally appeared in the December 2024/February 2025 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Rocks of Ages”).

Hampi Harks Back to a Long-Lost Age

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