Hampi - a brief revisit

Back in 2015, I visited Hampi and spent 4 full days tramping all around the place. And last month, I was back, briefly. The place has changed somewhat. Considerably more pilgrims seem to visit the Virupaksha temple these days. More seriously, all the many 'guest houses' in the village - functional, convenient and at least during off-season, very reasonably priced - have been forced to shut down by some weird court order and one has to look for acco in the filthy village of Kamalapuram 3 km away or the chaotic town of Hospet, an inconvenient 15 kms distant. However, the relics of the once mighty Vijayanagar capital remain what they have always been for centuries - densely atmospheric. Here is a short visual essay that focuses only on curious details:

A 'kinnari' musician on one of the temple pillars.

Very muslim arches in the 'Queen's bath':

Scalloped arches from the Lotus Mahal. They look very Shah Jahani - and predate the Mughal by a century and more!

Creepers overflowing a flower-pot - or stylized smoke from an incense burner. The first time I noticed this much loved motif was among the mosques at Champaner Pavgad in distant Gujarat a decade and more ago.

Dancers and musicians - their costumes look very like modern Bharatanatyam - from the Mahanavami Dibba:

A duel (?) featuring two figures wielding weird-looking weapons and sporting what look like Phrygian caps:

One of the kilometers of still standing massive walls. Neat granite slabs and blocks outside, rubble inside. Were they always like this or are the outer slabs a modern restoration effort?

A langur sits very still in driving rain as the gopuram of the Virupaksha temple looms:

Yet another of the many strange pillar figures at the Achyuta Raya temple:

A whole host of carvings - Kannappa, Vyaghrapada(?), Bheema(?), a fish-rider,...

And I also saw a particularly shocking carving of a female figure performing an essential act of ablution. No picture!

Lepakshi

Lepakshi - as per some etymologies "Rise, O Bird!" (*)- is one place I knew precious little about till a few weeks back. Situated just inside Andhra and an easy daytrip from Bangalore, Lepakshi has a Vijayanagar style temple built in early 16th century - to my knowledge the only major temple where Virabhadra is the principal deity.

The temple is big without being huge and stands on a flattish expanse of exposed granite. Most visitors restrict themselves to the so-called hanging pillar (some over-curious Brit official tried to damage it as per some legends) and the monolithic 'Nagalinga'. They also click a few pics in front of the grand monolithic Nandi - very well preserved except that it seems -very clumsily- castrated.

Here is a quick visual roundup (pity I didn't budget for more than a couple of hours there!):

A visitor puts his nose to the ground (well, almost) before the hanging pillar:

In this strongly Saiva temple, Vishnu (guess that is him in his 'Panchamukha' form, playing the mridangam) and Brahma (with cymbals) are reduced to being accompanists to Siva's show.

But sculpture is by no means, Lepakshi's strong suit - it's painting, by miles. The ceiling of a large stone mandapa that leads to the central shrine has several dozen paintings. Unfortunately, most have suffered ravages of time and elements. And they are nowhere near as widely known as they ought to be; indeed, as opposed to sculpture, very very few of pre-1600 Indian paintings have survived. So much so that Lepakshi - with whatever it has been able to preserve - ought to be far more significant (at least to us) than, say, the Egyptian tomb of Nabamun (on display at the British Museum) - both as repository of paintings and even as record of contemporary life (just see the sheer range in attire, headgear, hairstyles and what not in the pictures below!):

A row of courtiers wearing tunics and strange headgear that brings to mind whirling dervishes. Noteworthy is the range of skin tones in this and following pix - am reminded of murals at the Varadaraja temple in Kanchi.

A dash of 16th century haute couture (the Nebamun gallery shows a row of rather hep Egyptian ladies from 1500 BC)- one of the ladies wears a full sleeved blouse:

Part of this complex scene below features on the cover of the detailed monograph on Lepakshi by Dallapicola et al (I don't possess a copy). Something about it reminds me of a Minoan 'bull-jumping' mural and the fowling scene from 'Nebamun'.

Another curious feature above is the huntress wearing a rather modern and functional looking brassiere - not the sort of very skimpy bustier one gets to see on goddesses in traditional Desi art - or for that matter, the type worn by Amar Chitra Katha heroines! This ought to be as famous as the 'Bikini girl' Roman mosaic!!

A green-skinned Vishnu is a mere attendant to enthroned uber-God Siva:

Siva shoots down the three flying crime-cities (Tripura) with a single arrow. Sun and crescent moon are wheels of his chariot and Brahma is the charioteer.

Just as interesting as the Puranic episodes being illustrated (many of which need greater expertise than I possess to interpret) are the beautiful patterns on the borders of the paintings. See here (and who can that green skinned and six armed figure be? A v tentative guess would be sage Shuka):

Note added on December 30th, 2023: Just gathered that the strange green figure is (of all beings!) Indra. Arjuna is falling at his feet - multiple stages of his prostration are shown in a kind of proto-animation!
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Thought: Smartphones with powerful cameras and massive memory have impacted travel very profoundly. There is something very 'bovine' in the new traveler - simply shoot, shoot, shoot at everything and stuff oneself with hundreds of images and later, settle and go over each pic. Actual real-time immersion is near-zero - and the visual component has come to override all other senses - but the 'rumination' yields details and insights one wouldn't have gathered in the 'traditional' way.

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(*) A grislier etymology is about someone's eyes, gouged out and smeared on a wall.