This is a story of confluences.

Confluence of rivers. Confluence and faiths. Confluence of cultures. Confluence of architectural styles. Perhaps we could condense all this and call it a confluence of beauty and truth.

And all this belonged to a different time, but spatially, they know what belonging means, something the human heart sometimes places in the context of yearnings. And they belong to a place brimming with stories of ancience: Hampe in Karnataka.

This confluence is the coming together of the Deccan Sultanate architecture with the long enduring native Vijayanagara architecture, the assimilation of a style in the form of mosques, tombs, mahals and some such things in the very Vijayanagara times. Despite the political turmoil between the invaders and the defenders on this soil, beauty rose in the form of architecture – a testament to ever present human dichotomies. Now that what remains of all these confluences of aesthetics stands in ruins, a disquieting stillness stirs in the air. You could even be engulfed by a sense of futility of it all, but even in the face of it, you could never dismiss the breathtaking ways in which the world wants to enter you and breathe in you and be the way only you could contain it to be.

Perhaps two of the most notable Sultanate style monuments include the popular Kamala Mahal or Chitrangani Mahal or Lotus Mahal and the Elephant Stable. You could explore the geometrical beauty of these two monuments that make the Zenana enclosure a unique container of yesteryear glory. The ceremonial royal elephants were important to the Vijayanagara Kingdom– and the Elephant Stable with its 11 ornate domes are a proof of that significance the pachyderms had.

Another mingling of Hindu and Islam architectural details is the courtly building used by the royal women – Kamala Mahal – a structure that looks like a lotus in eternal flowering, with decorated arched openings, and walls and pillars adorned with patterns of sea and avian creatures among other details.

Close to the Vitthala Temple, there is an offbeat path through a private banana plantation that leads to two such Sultanate-style monuments that stand a testament to a more secular life that followed the political bickering for and around power: Ahmed Khan’s tomb and mosque.

The mosque has a prayer niche supported by hardy pillars. It was built in 1439 by Ahmed Khan, an army officer. In fact, an inscription in the mosque identifies the mosque as a Dharamshaala as well, borrowing this Indic idea of extending generosity as a resting place for travellers and the needy.

The tomb, on the other hand, is rather small but stands with endearing dignity. It is its own. It is cubical in shape and has a dome for its ceiling, now half-ruined, with green life sprouting out of its cracks. On any given evening, you might see a peacock dashing across the sky and land on its flat ceiling, or a goatherd walking past it with his bleating goats.

While there are many watchtowers in and also around Hampe, the largest one is the Mohammadan watchtower. It is also safe to say it is the most detailed, ornate one, too. A rather narrow stairway at the south gets you to the top floor of this tall, robust watchtower, whose domes are built from rock and known to be plastered together, and its projecting balconies are embellished with buttressing corbel brackets. Watchtowers were typically built as military observatories or as the posts of guards in specific areas of the city. While military watchtowers are usually located at vantage points like hilltops, edges of forts and riversides, others were customarily located within royal areas and other civil locations.

The watchtowers in the Dannayaka Enclosure and the one inside the Zenana Enclosure are some of the most well-built watchtowers. In fact, if your feet could accumulate more walking miles, you could also find along the riverside, on top of the boulder hills, four-pillared tiny rock pavilions in isolation. Many of these are known to have been used as military observatory posts.

When in Hampe, you could see these confluences, a form of coexistence that learned calm despite stemming out of unrest. Perhaps we rise above chasms when we strengthen our spine to hold occurrences of the past as close to truth as we could possibly surmise in the present, to cautiously discard what never helped the individual and the collective and to embrace all that could bring us together. A confluence of humility and learning. A confluence of selfless engagement with this world and a greed for generosity should there be any. A confluence of times whence emerge all things beautiful and flow into the realms of the timeless.

Sourabha Rao

Sourabha Rao is a professional writer, poet, translator, former freelance columnist and voiceover artist, with literary proficiency in English and Kannada. She deeply cares about producing stories primarily on nature and wildlife, social issues, history and art. She strives to write truthfully and creatively in an earnest attempt to create content that educates and entertains, has impact, and mobilises positive social change. She has written op-eds and photo-stories for leading Kannada and English newspapers, and has collaborated with filmmakers in wildlife conservation and water conservation. Sourabha lives in Bengaluru, while a big chunk of her heart has stayed back in Mysuru, her forever-muse.

Singing of confluences, tangible and intangible

Sourabha Rao