Digital Rare Book:
A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar - A Contribution to the History of India
By Robert Sewell
Published in London in late 1800s.

Book Excerpt:
A word as to my spelling of names. I have adopted a medium course in many cases between the crudities of former generations and the scientific requirements of the age in which we live; the result of which will probably be my condemnation by both parties. But to the highly educated I would point out that this work is intended for general reading, and that I have therefore thought it best to avoid the use of a special font of type containing the proper diacritical points; while to the rest I venture to present the plea that the time has passed when Vijayanagar needs to be spelt "Beejanuggur," or Kondavidu "Condbeer."

Thus I have been bold enough to drop the final and essential "a" of the name of the great city, and spell the word "Vijayanagar," as it is usually pronounced by the English. The name is composed of two words, VIJAYA, "victory," and NAGARA, "city," all the "a's" to be pronounced short, like the "u" in "sun," or the "a" in "organ."

"Narasimha" ought, no doubt, to be spelt "Nrisimha," but that in such case the "ri" ought to have a dot under the "r" as the syllable is really a vowel, and I have preferred the common spelling of modern days. (Here again all three "a's" are short.)

As with the final "a" in "Vijayanagara," so with the final "u" in such names as "Kondavidu" -- it has been dropped in order to avoid an appearance of pedantry; and I have preferred the more common "Rajahmundry" to the more correct "Rajamahendri," "Trichinopoly" to "Tiruchhinapalle," and so on.

This system may not be very scientific, but I trust it will prove not unacceptable.

The name of the capital is spelt in many different ways by the chroniclers and travellers. The usual Portuguese spelling was "Bisnaga;" but we have also the forms "Bicheneger" (NIKITIN), "Bidjanagar" (ABDUR RAZZAK), "Bizenegalia" (CONTI), "Bisnagar," "Beejanuggur," &c.


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Image:
Beejanuggur. General view of ruins - 1857

Photograph with a view looking down onto the group of Jain temples south of the Virupaksha Temple, at Vijayanagara in Karnataka, taken by William Henry Pigou in c.1857, from 'Architecture in Dharwar and Mysore'. Vijayanagara, the City of Victory, was the seat of a powerful Hindu kingdom in Southern India from 1336 to 1565. The kingdom was founded by two brothers, Harihara and Bukka, formerly chieftains with the Delhi Sultanate. Vijayanagara flourished as a prosperous centre of Hindu art, culture and architecture, until the Battle of Talikota in 1565 when it was defeated by the armies of a coalition of neighbouring Muslim kingdoms, its rivals for supremacy in the Deccan. The ruins of this vast royal city on the bank of the Tungabhadra River lie surrounded by granite hills. The site is also known as Hampi, together with a small local village nearby. In its heyday, with its strategic setting which was both spectacular and with good natural defences, the city was an influential centre for trade, especially in Arab horses and spices, and welcomed foreign travellers who left accounts of its grandeur. Its plan consisted of a number of zones, the sacred, the urban and the royal.

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