A Forgotten Empire

"The empire of Vijayanagar flourished between 1336 and 1565 and represented the grandest achievement of Brahmanism. The great Madhavacharya was probably its founder, his uterine brother Sayancharya was its greatest minister. Vijaynagar had its days of barbaric splendour, wealth and luxury reminding us of the declining glory of Rome, when Rajas and nobles kept many hundreds of women in their harems and many more to attend on them, when palaces were literally paved with gold and jewels, when temples and their priests revealed in the immensity of their ill-gotten wealth, in the dazzling magnificence of their festivals and the fleeting charms of dancing girls, and gorgeous monuments of architecture rose out of the sweat of slaves and prisoners of war. Otherwise, the history of the 250 years of the ascendancy of Vijaynagar is a history of bloody wars without a moment of peace and security, of plots and counter-plots, of indulgence in wine and women, of Sati, slavery and forced labour, of 400 and 500 women being burried alive along with their husbands, of human sacrifices, such as that of sixty human victims offered to ensure the security of a dam near Hospet, of huge slaughter of animals for religious function and other frightful excesses of priestcraft. During a nine-day religious celebration the king accompanied by his Brahmins went where the idols were and every day watched the slaughter of animals. "Then he witnesses the slaughter of twenty-four buffaloes and a hundred and fifty sheep with which a sacrifice is made to the idol."