6 august 2018 http://www.openthemagazine.com 15
colonnaded streets. eventually, he arrived at the innermost pal-
ace of the king, where he observed a vast audience hall, a vaulted
hall of justice, the spacious hall of the chief minister, and a mint.
after a short wait, abdur Razzak was taken in to an audience
with the king, Devaraya II (r 1424-46) who ‘was seated in a hall,
surrounded by the most imposing attributes of state. Right and
left of him stood a numerous crowd of men ranged in a circle.
the king was dressed in a robe of green satin; around his neck
he wore a collar composed of pearls of beautiful water and other
splendid gems... on which a jeweller’s intellect would have
found it difficult to put a price. he had an olive complexion,
his frame was thin and he was rather tall; on his cheeks might
be seen a slight down, but there was no beard on his chin’. the
throne, he wrote, ‘was of an extraordinary size, made of gold
inlay encrusted with beautiful jewels and ornaments with
exceeding delicacy, dexterity and artistic refinement... It is prob-
able that in all the kingdoms of the world, the art in inlaying pre-
cious stones is nowhere better understood than in this country’.
abdur Razzak was not alone. all visitors were dazzled by
the riches of Vijayanagara. apart from anything else, the City
of Victory was the location of the world’s largest diamonds.
according to the first treatise on the subject written by the
Portuguese natural philosopher Garcia da Orto (1501-68) it was
in Vijayanagara that the world’s biggest diamonds were on dis-
play—and the richest diamond deposits were located nearby,
within its territories: ‘there are two or three rocks which yield
much to the King of Vijayanagara,’ he wrote, ‘the diamonds
yield great income to the King of this country. any stone which
has a weight over 30 carats belongs to the King. for this guard is
placed over the diggers, and if any person is found with any, he
is taken with all that he has.... the Gujeratis buy them and take
them for sale in the city of Vijayanagara, where these diamonds
fetch a high price, especially those they call naifes, being those
which nature has worked; while the Portuguese value those
most which have been polished. the Canarese say that just
as a virgin is more valuable than a woman who is not one, so
this naife diamond is worth more than a cut one.... the largest
I have seen in this land was 140 carats, another 120, and I have
heard that a native of this land had one of 250 carats... Many
years ago I heard from a person worthy of credit that he saw oneThere is a celebrated opening sequence to VS Naipaul’s masterpiece,
India: A Wounded Civilization, which beautifully describes these shattered ruins of
Hampi. Naipaul leads the reader through the remains of the once mighty city, its
24 miles of walls winding through the ‘brown plateau of rock and gigantic boulders’