Hampi in India – take 1

Friday, 7 October 2016

I’ve reported on my visit to Global Heritage Fund’s Chandramauleshwara Temple at Hampi and how pleased I was to finally get to this wonderful temple-studded abandoned city in southern India. So here’s a random selection of images from my recent visit. I’ll post some more tomorrow.

▲ Hampi has lots of monkeys, you’re warned to keep your room door shut or they’ll be in and creating havoc as soon as you turn your back. This mother and her baby were hanging out at the Virupaksha Temple, one of the biggest temples in Hampi and one of the few still in everyday use.

▲ Right across the river from the Chandramauleshwara Temple I really liked the Purandara Mandapa Temple, the Tungabhadra River flows right through it.

▲ There are quite a few warning signs about the dangers of swimming in the fast flowing river and a few warning signs for crocodiles. Like Bollywood stars the crocodiles seem to have got rather porky when they’re immortalized in paint.

▲ The inscribed Vishnu Temple takes its name from the extensive Sanskrit inscriptions.

▲ The temple bas reliefs were wonderful and sometimes an isolated relief would pop up all by itself , like this lizard on the Inscribed Vishnu Temple.

▲ The Vitthala Temple is probably the single most important temple at Hampi, it’s noted for the wonderful stone temple chariot, complete with stone wheels which once upon a time could be turned.

▲ The Lotus Mahal in the Zenana Enclosure is another notably edifice, I liked this group of women all sitting on the ground and studiously weeding the lawn. It wasn’t going to be a fast task.

▲ The Hazarama Temple had some of the finest bas reliefs at Hampi, here’s a series of them along the outside wall of the temple.

◄ and a couple more.