01The chariot and the singing pillars
The Garuda shrine in the courtyard is built as a temple car, with stone wheels that once turned and the image of Garuda inside facing the sanctum. It is now on the back of India’s fifty-rupee note. The maha mandapa before the sanctum stands on 56 slender pillars carved as clusters of colonnettes, and these give musical notes when tapped, which is why the ASI no longer lets visitors strike them. Inscriptions on the kalyana mandapa and the gopurams record gifts by Krishnadevaraya’s queens and by Achyutaraya. The temple sits in its own walled street with a pushkarani and bazaar, leading down to the Tungabhadra.
02A sanctum without its Lord
Maharashtrian tradition holds that the Vitthala of Pandharpur was once carried to Vijayanagara and that the saint Bhanudas of Paithan, great-grandfather of Eknath, brought him home. Whatever the truth of that, the sanctum here is empty. In 1565 the victors of Talikota attacked this temple with special force; the mandapas show smashed pillars and burn marks, and worship never resumed. It became a monument of the ASI, and the stone chariot and mandapas were conserved through the 20th century.
The life of this place
- 15th centuryThe first Vittala shrine is built.
- 1513 onwardKrishnadevaraya’s reign: gopurams and mandapas are added, with gifts recorded by his queens.
- 1565The temple is damaged in the sack and worship ends.
- 1986Part of the UNESCO Group of Monuments at Hampi.
About 2 km east of Hampi bazaar along the river path. Battery vehicles run from the ticket gate; come early before the heat.
