Foreign Travellers

The Vijayanagara Empire (1336–1646 CE) attracted a continuous stream of global diplomats, merchants, and scholars due to its immense wealth, military dominance, and control over crucial Indian Ocean trade routes. The accounts left behind by these contemporary foreign observers serve as primary source materials for reconstructing the socio-political, administrative, and economic history of medieval South India. These chronicles provide independent cross-verification for indigenous epigraphical records found across Hampi.

Chronological Distribution of Key Travellers

Foreign visitors traveled to the empire across its four successive ruling dynasties. Their arrivals coincided with phases of capital consolidation, economic zenith, and eventual post-Talikota decline.

Detailed Analytical Breakdown of Key Travelogues

Ibn Battuta (Morocco)

Traveling during the foundational years of the Sangama dynasty, Ibn Battuta focused on the geographical stretch of the empire and its interactions with Islamic coastal principalities. He provided specific details regarding the high efficiency of the coastal navies and the flourishing trade in Malabar spices. His descriptions highlight the early military conflicts between the northern borders of Vijayanagara and the emerging Bahmani Sultanate.

Nicolo de Conti (Italy)

Nicolo de Conti entered the capital city of Hampi during the reign of Deva Raya I and provided the earliest detailed Western description of the city’s scale.

• He estimated the circumference of the city walls to be approximately 60 miles and noted that the fortifications extended deep into the surrounding hills.
• He recorded the widespread prevalence of polygamy among the ruling elite and documented the practice of Sati (widow burning) within the royal family.
• He gave the earliest foreign account of major public festivals, specifically focusing on the massive scale of the Deepavali and Mahanavami (Navaratri) celebrations, noting how the king sat on a decorated throne while thousands of sacrificial offerings were made.

Abdur Razzaq (Persia)

Sent as an official ambassador by the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh of Persia, Abdur Razzaq visited Hampi during the zenith of the Sangama dynasty under Deva Raya II. His travelogue, Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain, provides the most detailed administrative and spatial layout of the capital.

• He famously noted that “the eye has not seen nor ear heard of any place to equal it on earth,” describing Hampi as being protected by seven concentric rings of fortified stone walls.
• He observed that the space between the outer three walls was occupied by agricultural fields, gardens, and homes, a deliberate defensive mechanism against prolonged military sieges.
• He detailed the exact structure of the state administration, documenting the presence of a centralized secretariat (Divana-Khana) and a highly organized accounting mint (Tankanashala).
• He remarked on the absolute safety of trade, noting that jewelers publicly sold pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds in open market streets without fear of theft due to strict policing.

Athanasius Nikitin (Russia)

A Russian merchant who traveled through the Deccan, Nikitin spent considerable time in the neighboring Bahmani Kingdom but heavily documented the military status of the Vijayanagara Empire. In his work The Journey Beyond Three Seas, he contrasted the immense luxury enjoyed by the Vijayanagara nobles and the king with the stark poverty of the agrarian peasantry in the rural hinterlands. He also provided precise figures regarding the massive sizes of the infantry, cavalry, and war elephant corps maintained by the central authority at Hampi.

Domingos Paes (Portugal)

Domingos Paes visited during the golden age of the Tuluva dynasty under Krishna Deva Raya. His written chronicle, the Chronica dos Reis de Bisnaga, provides an intimate, eyewitness account of the emperor’s personality and daily governance.

• He described Krishna Deva Raya as a person of medium height, fair complexion, and good figure, noting that he was a highly capable ruler who exercised absolute authority but maintained an accessible, justice-oriented court.
• He compared the physical size and density of Hampi directly to Rome, stating that its population was impossible to calculate due to the sheer volume of continuous human traffic.
• He provided a meticulous description of the Mahanavami Dibba (the stone platform), detailing how the emperor used it to inspect grand military parades, witness wrestling matches, and receive annual tributary payments from provincial governors.

Fernao Nuniz (Portugal)

Fernao Nuniz was a Portuguese horse trader who spent several years in Hampi during the reign of Achyuta Deva Raya. His accounts are unique because they trace the oral history of the empire from its 14th-century inception.

• He provided the most complete structural analysis of the Nayankara System, outlining how the king distributed land (Amaram) to military commanders (Amara-Nayakas) in exchange for maintaining precise military quotas of horses and soldiers.
• He documented the highly specialized legal and domestic roles held by women in Vijayanagara society. He noted that women were actively employed as royal bodyguards, palace accountants, judges, astrologers, and professional wrestlers.
• He provided detailed records of the royal kitchen expenditures and the complex system of animal sacrifices practiced during state rituals.

Caesar Frederick (Venice)

Caesar Frederick visited Hampi in 1567 CE, exactly two years after the catastrophic defeat of the empire at the Battle of Talikota. His account serves as an archaeological post-mortem of the capital. He described how the city had been completely looted, burned, and left entirely desolate, with nature reclaiming the stone palaces, marking the permanent shift of the capital southwards to Penukonda and Chandragiri.

Socio-Economic Insights Extracted from Foreign Accounts

The Horse Trade Monopoly

Nearly all Portuguese travelers (particularly Paes, Nuniz, and Barbosa) highlighted the critical geopolitical importance of the import trade in military horses. They recorded that Krishna Deva Raya maintained a strict exclusive trade alliance with the Portuguese governors of Goa. The empire paid exceptionally high prices for premium Arabian and Persian steeds, completely blocking the northern Deccan Sultanates from accessing these maritime supply chains, which ensured Vijayanagara’s cavalry superiority.

Currency and Everyday Commercial Transactions

Foreign accounts provide independent corroboration of the empire’s numismatic system. Travelers noted that gold coins, referred to as Varahas or Pons (called Pardaos by the Portuguese), were universally accepted across international trade networks. They documented that silver Tars and copper Kasus were used for minor domestic transactions in the weekly village markets (Santhes), proving the existence of a deeply monetized economy spanning all social strata.

Religious Syncretism and Pluralistic Governance

Duarte Barbosa explicitly documented the high degree of religious freedom granted by the state. He recorded that the Vijayanagara kings ensured that any person—whether Christian, Jew, Moor (Muslim), or Hindu—could travel and live anywhere within the empire without facing persecution or forced conversion, provided they adhered to local civil laws. This religious tolerance facilitated the permanent settlement of foreign merchant communities within the key coastal ports.

Key Historical Trivia for Civil Services Preparation

The Name “Bisnaga”

In nearly all Portuguese records, including the works of Paes and Nuniz, the Vijayanagara Empire is never referred to by its Sanskrit name. Instead, it is phonetically documented as the Kingdom of Bisnaga, which was a Portuguese corruption of the local Kannada name for the capital region, Hananagara or Vijayanagara (corrupted via Hampi/Hosapattana).

Seven Walls Verification

While indigenous literature mentions the multi-tiered defense of Hampi, it is specifically the Persian account of Abdur Razzaq that provides the precise architectural blueprint of the seven concentric walls. Modern satellite mapping and archaeological excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have confirmed the remnant trajectories of these precise seven defensive rings.

Detailed Physical Routine of Krishna Deva Raya

Domingos Paes recorded the highly rigorous personal fitness regime of Emperor Krishna Deva Raya. He noted that the king woke up before dawn, drank three-quarters of a pint of gingelly (sesame) oil, massaged his body thoroughly, and spent hours practicing swordplay, weightlifting, and wrestling with his officers before taking his morning bath and proceeding to the administrative court.