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Plates for a king-size appetite

The guide claims that each one served a soldier, but this is hard to believe as each plate could easily carry food for 10 people
Last Updated 15 February 2020, 03:11 IST

Hampi’s enchanting ruins, spread over 4,18,724 hectares in the much-revered Tungabhadra basin, are a UNESCO World Heritage site and speak volumes of a once glorious kingdom.

Some of these stone poems are the massive granite dining plates found near the Bhojanasala or the community dining area meant for the soldiers of 15th century. It’s located close to the pushkarni or the temple tank area of the royal enclosure. It’s accessible via the main road that connects Hampi with Kamalapura, a town nearby.

In what appears to be a dining hall, the giant dining plates confound you with their size and weight.

Our guide remarks that these massive plates with dimples of tiny bowls at the corners were used by the king’s soldiers during the main festivals.

Does this mean that the king’s men had voracious appetites and were colossal? These tastefully done dinner plates chiselled out of hard granite rocks also testify to the extensive use of stone material available in the Deccan.

Backstory

Skilled labourers shaped the dining plates, and this must have created employment, too, as the Vijayanagar kings were known to maintain a large standing army besides a powerful navy.

The rows of plates carved on the rock slabs face each other with an empty aqueduct separating the two.

High-breed Arabian war horses and guns were procured through trade with the Portuguese and the Arabs.

During Krishnadevaraya’s rule, an army of soldiers were enrolled from the Tulu, Kabbali and Morasa clans. Forest tribes including Chenchu and Koya were recruited into the army.

Though Telugu acted as the lingua franca of the Vijayanagara empire due to the density of Telugu-speaking people in administration and military, there was no sole official language.

Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit all received royal patronage.

The top-grade officers of the army known as Nayaks or Poligars, were granted land called amaram for their services.

The soldiers who trained hard and maintained top-notch physical fitness were usually paid in cash every four months rather than by the award of jagirs.

Another stone relic here is the massive cauldron housed in the Virupaksha temple complex.

Measuring more than a metre in height and weighing several kgs, this large pot shaped out of solid granite was used for preparing the temple prasada.

The cauldron, being thick, must have several logs of wood and to enable the heat to reach the core.

This relic placed on the side of the temple complex could easily escape your notice if you have nobody to point it out.

One can also find kitchen implements like grinding stone and pestles used during their reign.

These are just some of the thousands of stone relics found here, and it pays to hire a guide lest you miss out on the antiquities of these known stone relics from another era.

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(Published 15 February 2020, 03:08 IST)

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