The sprawling city Hampae was a fortified habitation. One can see strong fort walls around the ruins, and also within to keep royal premises secure. With so many walls present there will be gateways so that movement is not restricted completely. As I know there are at least five gateways namely domed gateway, Bhimana Hebbagilu, Talarighatta Hebbagilu, Huvina Bagilu, and of course Sringarada Hebbagilu. There could be many more gateways on the outer walls yet to be discovered.
I'd seen Bhimana Hebbagilu during the Aug 2017 trip with Pushpa. And later I discovered the domed gateway which is close to Bhima's gateway, and Sringarada Hebbagilu which is close to the elephant stables.
December 9, 2024. Our tour of Hampi started around 9-30 am. We covered the monuments beyond Kamalapaur town until lunch time, then checked into KSTDC lodge at Kamalapur and then resumed the tour around 3-30 pm. First we saw Zenana enclosure followed by elephant stables. Generally tourists do no bother to explore beyond the stables, even I'd done in my previous five trips here. This time I was determined to check out the ruins beyond the stables. The security person tried to dissuade us by telling there are bears and leopards in the jungle. I ignored his remark and pulled Sridhar along. We took the foot path going into deserted.. first we saw two ruined temples, one Vaishnava and the other Jaina. Then we continued with the path which went to Sringarada Hebbagilu which translates to decorated gateway.
After a seven or eight minute trek, we arrive at the ruins of Sringarada Hebbagilu. Looks like this complex of walls and platforms took a lot of battering from the invading armies after the final battle when Hampi fell. At the other gateways arches have survived but here the damage is much greater.
A tourism board planted at the entrance descibes the monument as follows:
This main gateway is at the end of Pansupari Bazaar This is also called Singhara Hebbagilu. This gateway led to the suburbs from the core of the citadel. There are inscriptions mentioning this gate on a hill to the north of this gate. The massive gate has strong walls on either side creating a wider court in its centre. On the southeast of this space there is a Vaishnava Temple. On both sides of the entrance there are carvings of Vaishnava Dwarapalakas. The four pillars in the Sabhamandapa have bas-relief sculptures such as those of Yali and Anjaneya. On the western wall of the fort there are bas-relief sculptures of Ganesha, a lady grooming herself, Nandi, an elephant, and other warriors. There are also bas-relief sculptures of Dwarapalakas on either side of the door frame. The many decorative and beautiful carvings on the gate give it its name Srungarada (decorative) Hebbagilu (main gateway). On the hill to the north of the Srungarada Hebbagilu, south-facing Vishnu Dashavatara bas-relief sculptures are found in mandapas. This mandapa is called as Dashavatara Mandapa. one of the detutient sculplture of a Dwarapala of lorge size at present is placed at the archaeological museum Kamalapur. known for its at fine in Persian style.
The gateway complex is about 65 meters long and within it are three temples, simple looking but elegant and inactive since none of them have deities. The smaller one is the within the passage. I'm not sure if this structure has been restored by ASI in the recent times since it looks so neat.
The steps ascending into the temple has only one balustrade left, the other one is missing.
There's also a much smaller temple sitting in the space between the larger temple and the fortified wall.
The walls are about 18 feet high, at places shorter since blocks have gone missing. At some point between Hampi's fall and early XX Century, looks like people carted away blocks from the ruins to be used elsewhere.
At the end of the gateway is the fence of a private mango orchard. We couldn't venture any further. Looking back at the way we came.
While standing near the fence I noticed this granite slab arrangement which looks like prehistoric cist burial chamber. I'm not sure if it's one... can't tell unless I get to see it closer.
On the way back, I noticed images of Ganesha and people worshipping.
On the opposite side was an image of two musicians. Though the images are damaged, one can make out that both are bearded, the one of the right is playing a drum. While I was checking out the images Sridhar was getting little impatient. The security guard's remark about wild animals had got on, and he wanted to get out of this place. I told him a quick way to scare any wild beasts but I can't give the details here.
The other larger temple. This one had a Shikhara. I'm sure this was one fine structure back then.
Sridhar was relieved that we are finally leaving but I happened to noticed a narrower path going towards the rocky hillock to our right hand side. Also there was a board with a title Dasavatara Mandapa. I couldn't see any mantapa at ground level but there were couple of mantapa on the slopes of the hillock. To reach them it might've taken at least ten minutes which meant another 30 minutes to get back to safe place. Dropped the idea, I'll climb that hillock some other day and spend a couple of hours to check out several monuments up there. Sridhar was relieved, again. We headed back to the stables and then to the vehicle parking lot near the museum. We called it a day and headed back to our lodge.
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