Hampi-Vijayanagara: Its Life and Afterlives

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Anila Verghese, art historian and educationist, Chairperson and Trustee, Society for Higher Education of Women in India; Director, Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai and former Principal of Sophia College for Women, Mumbai

Introduction: Dr. Himanshu Prabha Ray

Chair: Prof. Anna Dallapiccola

Hampi is today one of the most famous tourist destinations in peninsular India; it is also a UNESCO world heritage site. This lecture will touch briefly on the various stages in the life and afterlives of this site. The first half of the lecture focuses briefly on the pre-Vijayanagara existence of the site as a tirtha; then its development as a large urban complex between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-sixteenth centuries CE, especially the first half of the sixteenth when it served as the capital of the Vijayanagara empire. The first important phase in its ‘afterlife’ was that of Hampi as an archaeological site. The next phase is of Hampi as predominantly a ‘heritage site’ and the present phase is of it largely as a ‘tourist site’.