Hampi is a historical site scattered with ruins and excavations a strange landscape suffused by silence and austerity. As the capital of the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara, which reached its zenith under the rule of Krishnadeva Raya between 1509 and 1529, Hampi was a beautiful city in its prime. It was vanquished in a war with five rival kingdoms in 1565, when the city was ransacked and destroyed completely.
Entering the vicinity of Hampi, one sees massive boulders in the largely rocky landscape, balanced on or against others in seemingly precarious positions. The scale of things here from the size of the mammoth boulders to the vastness of architectural space, with scarcely any relief in the form of trees or water bodies only adds to the aura of Hampi. This land is not just empty, it is desolate. And probably the worst thing you can do is visit it for only a day. This place needs at least a weekend, so that its silence can settle into your soul and you can begin to feel its vibrations.
This is the only ruined city of any significance to be seen in India. Its 33-km area is large, and the surviving structures are sufficient to give a feel of what the city would have been like in its prime. More important, however, is the fact that Hampi challenges every notion of beauty you could have held about a place. One can find places of great natural beauty in mountains, seasides, plains and deserts; compared to Hampi these are clichd. This is land so barren, it is stone. But not your average, run-of-the-mill stone. Here you are surrounded with boulders larger than the largest trees, all balanced on a rocky and undulating terrain. They haven?t been chiselled into brick except for the ruined structures; they just lie around the place pretending to be nothing but themselves.
Unlike Jaisalmer, for instance, which uses sandstone to create a lovely city that glows in the sunlight, Hampis granite is uncompromisingly itself brown and grey and streaked with black. This is a place that easily could have inspired Tagores The Hungry Stones and is worthy of a visit simply to experience how a completely different terrain transforms the self. All the rest is a bonus.