The chronicle continues by saying that the king constructed in the city of Vijayanagar a magnificent temple in honour of the sage.This temple I take to be the great temple near the river,still in use and known as the temple of Hampi or Hampe,having a small village clustering about it.On the rocks above it,close to a group of more modern Jain temples,is to be seen a small shrine built entirely,roof as well as walls,of stone.Everything about this little relic proves it to be of greater antiquity than any other structure in the whole circuit of the hills,but its exact age is doubtful.It looks like a building of the seventh century A.D.Mr.Rea,superintendent of the Madras Archaeological Survey,in an article published in the MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE MAGAZINE for December 1886,points out that the fact of mortar having been used in its construction throws a doubt upon its being as old as its type of architecture would otherwise make it appear.It is quite possible,however,that the shrine may have been used by a succession of recluses,the last of whom was the great teacher Madhava.If we stand on that rock and imagine all the great ruins of the city visible from thence,the palaces and temples,the statues and towers and walls,to be swept out of existence,we have around us nothing but Nature in one of her wildest moods --lofty hills near and far,formed almost entirely of huge tumbled boulders of granite,but with trees and grass on all the low ground.It was a lonely spot,separated by the river from the mere inhabited country on the farther side,where dwelt the chiefs of Anegundi,and was just such as would have been chosen for their abode by the ascetics of former days,who loved to dwell in solitude and isolation amid scenes of grandeur and beauty.
We shall,however,in all probability never know whether this hermit,whose actual existence at the time is attested by every tradition regarding the origin of Vijayanagar,was really the great Madhava or another less celebrated sage,on whom by a confusion of ideas his name has been foisted.Some say that Madhavacharya lived entirely at Sringeri.
There are a number of other traditions relating to the birth of the city and empire of Vijayanagar.
One has it that two brothers named Bukka and Harihara,who had been in the service of the king of Warangal at the time of the destruction of that kingdom by the Muhammadans in 1323,escaped with a small body of horse to the hill country about Anegundi,being accompanied in their flight by the Brahman Madhava or Madhavacharya Vidyaranya,and by some means not stated became lords of that tract,afterwards founding the city of Vijayanagar.[29]
Another states that the two brothers were officers in the service of the Muhammadan governor of Warangal subsequent to its first capture in 1309.They were despatched against the Hoysala Ballala sovereign in the expedition under the command of Malik Kafur in 1310,which resulted in the capture of the Hindu capital,Dvarasamudra;but the portion of the force to which the brothers belonged suffered a defeat,and they fled to the mountainous tract near Anegundi.Here they met the holy Madhava,who was living the life of a recluse,and by his aid they established the kingdom and capital city.
