‘Victory City’: A brief history of the kingdom of Vijayanagara, in which Salman Rushdie’s latest novel is situated

Founded in 1336, the kingdom of Vijayanagara lasted for more than three centuries, a period in which it withstood multiple political stresses, and saw significant advances in art and economy.

It was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the sub-continent.

Over the course of its existence from 1336 to 1646, the kingdom saw various ups and downs. Founded by Harihara I of the Sangama dynasty, Vijayanagara expanded from a strategic position on the banks of the Tungabhadra river. By the 15th century, it had become a force to reckon with.

The kingdom reached its peak under Krishna Deva Raya (reign 1509-1529), a period in which it enjoyed military superiority to its rival kingdoms such as the Bahmani Sultanate, the Golconda Sultanate and the Gajapatis of Odisha.

At its peak, the kingdom stretched from Goa in the Konkan coast to parts of southern Odisha in the east and all the way to the very tip of the subcontinent in the south.

The foundations of the kingdom rested on its thriving trade and a monetised economy.

While the economy of the kingdom was largely dependent on agriculture, trade thrived in its many ports on either coast. Traveller Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi chronicled how “the ports of Mangalore, Honavar, Bhatkal, Barkur, Cochin, Cannanore, Machilipatnam, and Dharmadam saw traders from Africa, Arabia, Aden, the Red sea, China and Bengal and also served as ship building centres”.

The book is a fictionalised telling of the story of the Vijayanagara Kingdom. (Twitter/@SalmanRushdie)

The empire’s principal exports were pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, myrobalan, tamarind timber, anafistula, precious and semi-precious stones, pearls, musk, ambergris, rhubarb, aloe, cotton cloth and porcelain.

Razzaq also chronicled the high degree of monetisation in the Vijayanagara kingdom. In his classic History of South India, K A Nilakanta Sastri wrote that coins were minted by the state as well as by merchant guilds using gold, silver, copper and brass, and their value depended on material weight.

Vijayanagar’s contributions to culture and architecture were very significant.

This was a period when poetry and scholarship flourished, both in sacral and secular contexts. Literature in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada as well as Sanskrit was produced in the kingdom, with new writing styles and methods emerging.

In architecture, Vijayanagara saw various enduring constructions. According to art historian Percy Brown, Vijayanagara architecture is “a vibrant combination and blossoming of the Chalukya, Hoysala, Pandya and Chola styles, idioms that prospered in previous centuries.”

The Prasanna Virupaksha temple of Bukka I and the Hazara Rama temple of Krishna Deva Raya are striking examples of Vijayanagara’s characteristic style and intricate artistry.

Vijayanagara’s capital Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today, known for its sophisticated fortifications as well as innumerable temples and other architectural marvels. From accounts of foreign travellers, by the beginning of the 16th century, Hampi-Vijayanagara was probably the second largest urban settlement on the planet (after Beijing) and among the most prosperous.

It was the last bastion of Hindu rule in the South.

A lasting theme in Vijayanagara’s historiography has been its characterisation as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests”, writes historian Phillip B. Wagoner. From Robert Sewell’s classic A Forgotten Empire (1900) to Nilakanta Sastri’s 1955 magnum opus, this characterisation has persisted over the years and has been influential in the writing of the story of Vijayanagara.

“When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard (of Vijayanagara) which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries”, wrote Richard Sewell.

Vijayanagara has been remembered as an era of “cultural conservatism”, when classical forms of Hinduism were preserved amidst growing Islamization of the rest of the subcontinent, especially the North.