Dynastic History|Krishna Temple, Hampi — The Quarter the Inscriptions Call Krishnapura

The temple to Bala Krishna on the south side of Hemakuta hill was raised in the reign of Krishnadevaraya, and the inscriptions of the Vijayanagara court gave the quarter around it a name of its own: Krishnapura. The year is not quite settled. The site history by John Fritz and George Michell puts the temple at 1515; the Indian tourism ministry's visitor page gives 1513 and ties the foundation to the king's campaign against Udayagiri in the east. The court's reason for building is the reason that survived.

What the temple was for is only half of what stands here. Facing the eastern gateway runs a market street, colonnaded in stone on both sides, with a road down the middle broad enough for carts and for processional chariots. Halfway along it sits a pushkarani — a stepped public tank with a pavilion standing in the water — and beside that a hall for people to sit in. The gateway carries the ten avatars of Vishnu in relief, beginning with the fish at the bottom.

The sanctum is empty. The Bala Krishna image that gave the temple its name is in a museum in Chennai. South of the compound two monoliths were cut where they lay: a three-metre linga standing in water, and a Narasimha close to seven metres high whose shrine floor is stained with carbon, the stone having been burned. The Archaeological Survey of India holds the complex; the tourism ministry's own page reports the eastern tower under restoration, and the market street in front is walked now by visitors rather than traders.

📸 Cover: area view of the Krishna temple compound and its enclosure walls, Harshap3001, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons