Lotus Mahal, Hampi (Vijayanagar) - 1856

Amateur British colonial photographer, Alexander Greenlaw was the first to extensively photograph the site in 1855-56. The resulting series of waxed paper negatives were made available to the V&A and printed in 1910. These are the earliest known prints.

This photograph shows a view from the west of the two storeyed pavilion located in the Royal Centre popularly known as the 'Lotus Mahal'. This celebrated monument which dominates the zanana enclosure probably served as a council chamber. The pavilion is laid out on a square mandala-like plan with symmetrical projections on each side. The basement and nine pyramidal towers derive from temple architecture. The lobed arches and surrounding plaster decoration and the interior domes and vaults are Islamic in style. This building displays the Vijayanagara secular, or courtly, style at its best.

Concentrated around the Royal Centre, secular architecture at Vijayanagara can be distinguished by an overall Islamic appearance. There are no inscriptions or epigraphs linked to any of these structures and therefore remain only tentatively identified and dated. However, it should be noted that these buildings are closely associated with other secular and religious buildings within the royal centre used by the Hindu rulers, court and military and should not be attributed to any direct Muslim patronage, unlike structures such as tombs in the various Muslim quarters of the city. Rather, these structures represent something new and characteristic of Vijayanagara.

The Hindu court, the military, and the architects and craftsmen of Vijayanagara were well aware of the Deccan Islamic architectural traditions. By the mid-fifteenth century, buildings at the capital began to imitate the Islamic style as a result of a consciously cultivated taste for Islamic forms in which a new artistic tradition evolved that was neither purely Islamic nor Hindu. As such, Islamic-derived elements were synthesized with Hindu-derived elements, forming new compositions such as the ‘Lotus Mahal’ and elephant stables. Islamic features such as plaster decoration with geometric and arabesque motifs were Hinduized with lively animals and birds and in turn, Hindu forms such as moulded basements and temple-like parapets and sculptures were Islamicized by reducing the depth of carving to produce flat relief.

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