This is a poignant lament on the profound spiritual and cultural desecration of Hampi—the historic site identified with Kishkinda in the Ramayana. The essay calls for reflection on this loss of sanctity amid unchecked tourism and cultural indifference.
rājarṣi deva pratimau tāpasau saṃśita vratau |
deśam katham imam prāptau bhavantau varavarṇinau ||
Both of you appear like sagely kings and divine princes who have embraced an arduous vow and are dressed like asectics. You have a smooth complexion. Pray, what brings you to this region?
THIS IS THE MAIDEN address of Hanuman to Sri Rama and Lakshmana, and this is how he formally introduces himself:
prāpto'haṃ preṣitastena sugrīveṇa mahātmanā |
rājñā vānara mukhyānām hanumān nāma vānaraḥ ||
Delegated by that Mahatma named Sugreeva, the great king of monkeys, I have come to you. I am another monkey named Hanuman.
This pivotal meeting in Srimad Ramayana occurs in the serene vicinity of the Pampa Lake situated amidst the enchanting Kishkinda region teeming with mountain chains, caves, lakes, ponds, flowers, animals, fish, birds and butterflies. The Indian tradition declares that every milimetre of (undivided) Bharatavarsha has been sanctified by Rama’s ayana — journey or footstep.
Of all the Kāṇḍas (books) in the Ramayana, only the Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍa is named after a specific geographical location. Thus, its primacy in India’s sacred geography and cultural inheritance needs no better proof. Kishkinda, the capital of Sugreeva’s kingdom, is also Sri Rama’s springboard to Rameswaram and thereafter to Lanka.
Prior to their first encounter with Hanuman, the demon Kabandha has guided Rama and Lakshmana to the Pampa Lake. Maharshi Valmiki simply can’t get enough of extolling its splendour. The bulk of the 73rd chapter of the Aranya Kāṇḍa is devoted to describing the exquisite marvels of its environs; in its final chapter, Rama beholds the Pampa Lake, and its breathtaking tranquility reminds him of Sita; his pining intensifies. He continues this lament in the first chapter of the Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍa and he eventually becomes acquainted with Pampa’s divinity. The extent of Valmiki’s rapturous portrayal of Pampa makes it evident that he had spent months if not years in the region.
Pampa.
HAMPI.
The site of an extensive Hindu Empire that was predestined for valourous glory. An empire that saved Southern India from becoming the wasteland that its northern counterpart became under relentless Islamic depredations. The founders of the Vijayanagara Empire couldn’t have chosen a better or a more befitting location for its capital. The site was formerly an empire of monkeys who put their neck on the death-block and defeated the invincible Ravana in his own den. The “reality” of this immortal epic is trivial compared to the ideal it upholds; an ideal that continues to preserve whatever precious little is left of the Sanatana culture.
History and mythology are meshed in ways that are unapparent. In Sri Rama’s time, Kishkinda was engulfed in fear, doubt, chaos and confusion. Sri Rama not only liberated it by killing Vali but instilled order by infusing a sense of noble purpose in wild monkeys.
The founders of the Vijayanagara Empire achieved a comparable feat by expelling the Turushkas and bringing the whole of Dakṣiṇāpatha under their unifying spectre and birthed the safest and the richest city of its time. Two centuries before Thomas Roe stood in Jahangir’s opulent court, Vijayanagara had been the magnet that continually attracted Europeans to India; its contact enriched Venice, Rome, Lisbon, China and Persia.
When Will Durant memorably wrote that “history is the planks of a shipwreck” where “more of the past is lost than saved,” he universalised the phenomenon of the rise and fall of great empires.
The fateful Battle of Talikota (1565) was one such massive shipwreck of history. The Bahmani confederacy did not stop at merely killing Aḷiya Rama Raya, the commander-in-chief who led the Vijayanagara army; it physically extinguished the capital city, Vijayanagara, out of existence. In the Bahmani mind, this accursed city was the fount of Kaffir power in the Dakkhan; for more than two centuries, it had terrorised their psyche in indescribable ways and their assessment was accurate. No great Hindu Empire arose in South India after Vijayanagara was erased. But the temblor of its devastation was more enduring. Till recently, the Hindu memory preserved the history of Vijayanagara in two woeful Kannada words: Hāḷu Hampi — desolate Hampi. Hindus preferred to forget the epic Talikota tragedy notwithstanding the grandeur that had preceded and led to it.
According to archeologists and history scholars, the spread of the original Vijayanagara city was 236.46 Km Square, and the core area of the capital was about 42 Km Square comprising 1600 ruined monuments. This core area is what tourists are shown today. The foregoing data gives some perspective regarding the scale of Bahmani devastation, whose fanatical esurience was sated after nearly six months — excluding the genocide of Hindus.
IF KISHKINDA wasn’t endowed with such hoary legacy, it would be…nothing… not even a tourist destination. Today, it is hard to imagine that an entire flourishing civilisation of epic proportions had existed here; every trace indicating its former magnificence has been wiped out. The most tragic loss however, is the erosion of its sanctity.
A casual conversation with the locals in the vicinity of the Anjanadri Hill reveals the extent of their cultural and spiritual apathy. A majority are Kannadigas but their preferred tongue while opening a conversation with a stranger is English or Hindi; some are well-versed in multiple European languages. A standard reply to discreet questions is a nonchalant, “Yahan sab milta hai” (you get everything here). Alcohol, ganja, synthetic drugs and other excesses.
Over the last two decades, the whole area has been transformed into another Goa, bursting with illegal resorts, homestays and shacks. It shares its pathetic plight with another sacred Tirtha-Kshetra, Gokarna, which has for long, been notorious for degeneracy. Beginning roughly in the mid-2000s, a new, thriving tourist triangle of sin has emerged: Goa - Gokarna - Hampi. Needless, white-skinned foreigners are the prize catches in all three places and their every need is catered to on priority.
Nothing exemplifies the defilement of the sacred Kishkinda better than the depraved “Hippie Island,” a Xanadu of sin, vice and depravity. Shut down in 2020 by a court order, this had been the greatest allure of tourists for about three decades. Locals are still furious at the monetary loss and “hippies” lapse into wistful nostalgia mourning the end of its “iconic vibes” and variants thereof.
The original name of the degenerate appellation, “Hippie Island,” is Virupāpura Gaddi, named after the Virupaksha Temple in Hampi; Virupaksha, the guardian deity of the Vijayanagara Empire. The location is home to an ancient Durga Temple and scores of other Hindu shrines; the term Gaddi also denotes a spiritual seat. This perverse transformation of the sacred into the profane has been done not by Hippies or invaders but by Hindus hungry for a few pieces of foreign silver.
In his 1926 Kannada monograph, Pampāyātre (Pilgrimage to Pampa or Hampi), the litterateur V. Sitaramaiah mentions that the purpose of the pilgrimage was discover the secret of Hampi’s holiness, to unlock the magical continuity of its spiritual paramountcy from the Ramayana days, to listen to the hushed stories its stones told of the Vijayanagara days, and to learn the history of its art. This monograph, regarded as a classic, is also a dusty mirror to the aforementioned erosion of sanctity in Kishkinda.
Perhaps the most painful facet of this loss is the near-total absence of monkeys in the area. Kishkinda, the capital of Sugreeva, the abode of Hanuman, today, has no descendants to extol their ennobling lineage.
This desecration of the sacred Kishkinda reminds us of a haunting scene in Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa’s epic novel, Mandra. Its protagonist Mohanlal learns music in a hermitage-like dwelling in the middle of a dense jungle. He has only two companions — the Linga of Bhagavan Mahadeva inside the hermitage and the ceaseless gurgle of the Shipra river outside it. His Guru, a Maharaja, evokes the picture of a Rajarshi in our mind. When Mohanlal returns to the place decades later, he is bitterly disgusted. The Maharaja’s own son has transformed his palace into a seven-star hotel and the forest hermitage into a den of sex. White-skinned foreign tourists are circumambulating the sacred Shiva-Linga, touching and caressing it, likening it to the penis. An otherwise immoral man, Mohanlal, feels violated at the spectacle and vows never to return.
The violation of Kishkinda’s sanctity is of an infinite order of magnitude.
To be continued
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