Research, Script and Narration by Namit Arora;
Producer: The Wire;
Director: Natasha Badhwar;
Camera: Ajmal Jami;
Video Editor: Anam Sheikh.

Made possible by a grant from The Raza Foundation and contributions to The Wire by viewers like you. Join The Wire’s Youtube membership program and help fund many such initiatives.

The story of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation. In this tenpart web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and our civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists. He will also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travellers whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians. All along, Arora surveys India’s long and exciting churn of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values—some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever. The series mostly mirrors—and often extends—the contents of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. Bibliography appears below.

EPISODE 8: THE VIJAYANAGAR EMPIRE
The Vijayanagar Empire (1336–1565) once ruled much of south India. Foreigners have left vivid accounts of its capital city, aka Vijayanagar—its grand temples, palaces, royal baths, audience halls, Islamic quarter, bazaars, military might, and cosmopolitanism. Considered the birthplace of Carnatic music, Vijayanagar also evolved syncretic forms of architecture, governance, and courtly attire. Folk tales abound of its famous king, Krishnadevaraya, and his minister, Tenali Raman, who had a clever solution to every problem. The city’s remains now lie near Hampi village, in a beautiful rocky landscape by the Tungabhadra River.

How did Vijayanagar acquire all the wealth that impressed foreign travellers? Their eyewitness accounts—and contemporary scholars—reveal much about its economy, social customs, big festivals, and the cloistered lives of its elite women. In this episode, Namit Arora describes what’s known about its trade, taxation, governance, policing, crime and punishment. He also looks at Vijayanagar’s religious landscape and courtly norms, its eager embrace of Persianate culture, and its war machine and shifting military alliances in which religion mattered little. And finally, the causes of the empire’s massive defeat at the battle of Talikota. Hindu nationalists today fondly imagine Vijayanagar as a selfconscious bastion of Hinduism bravely resisting the ‘onslaught of Islam’. Is that true? As we’ll see, history is messy, and it often confounds sectarian readings of the past.

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING
Barbosa, Duarte; Trans. by Dames, M Longworth (1812); The Book of Duarte Barbosa: An account of the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants, 1518.

Eaton, Richard M.; The New Cambridge History of India, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives; CUP, 2005

Fritz, John M and Michell, George; Hampi Vijayanagara; Jaico, 2011

Ganeri, Jonardon (Editor); The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy; OUP, 2017

Katragadda, Sri Lakshmi; Women in Vijayanagara: Women in sixteenth century (A Study of Tuluva Dynasty); Delta Publishing, 1996

Keay, John; India: A History; Harper Collins, 1999

Kulke, Hermann and Rothermundm Dietmar; A History of India; Psychology Press, 2004

Nikhil; ‘Kanaka Dasa’s musical critique of “Caste, caste, caste”’; Nikhil, etc., 7 March 2017

Samarqandi, Kamaluddin AbdulRazzaq; Mission to Calicut and Vijayanagar; trans by W. M. Thackston; 1989

Sarasvati, A. Rangasvami; ‘Political Maxims of the Emperor Poet, Krishnadeva Raya’; Journal of Indian History 6 (1925)

Sastri, Nilakanta KA; A History of South India; OUP, 1958

Sayeed, Vikhar Ahmed; 'Beyond the HinduMuslim Binary'; Frontline, Jan 02, 2019

Sewell, Robert; Nunes, Fernão; Paes, Domingos; A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India; 1900; Repub by Asian Educational Services 2001

Shanmugam, P., S. Srinivasan (Editors); Recent Advances in Vijayanagara Studies; New Era Publications, 2006

Stein, Burton; The New Cambridge History of India: Vijayanagara; CUP, 1989

Stoker, Valerie; Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory; UC Press, 2016

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay; Agreeing to Disagree: Burton Stein on Vijayanagara; South Asia Research Vol. 17, No. 2, 1997

Thapar, Romila; The Past as Present; Aleph, 2014

Wagoner, Phillip B; ‘Sultan among Hindu Kings: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara’; The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 4, 1996

Join The Wire's Youtube Membership and get exclusive content, memberonly emojis, live interaction with The Wire's founders, editors and reporters and much more. Memberships to The Wire Crew start at Rs 89/month.    / @thewirenews