Vijayanagara: City of Victory
Spread over some ten square miles of the rocky Deccan plateau, explains Geroge Michell, are the remains of the once great city of southern India, Vijayanagara, which is now being rediscovered.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Muslims were pushing southwards into the peninsula of India, invading Hindu kingdoms and seeking to extend Islamic culture. Most of these invasions were directed from Delhi, where, towards the early part of the fourteenth century, difficulties arose and many Muslim armies had to be recalled. This created a power vacuum in the peninsula, permitting local opportunists to rise to power. Two such men were the brothers Hukka and Bukka, who established themselves at a hilly site beside the river Tungabhadra as founders of a new kingdom.
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