ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses legendary accounts of the foundation of Vijayanagara – the capital of the Vijayanagara state from the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century – and the role played by a Hindu saint named Vidyāraṇya. Analysis of these accounts will show that Vijayanagara was unique among south Indian ‘Hindu’ capitals not only in its spatial expanse and form, as shown in past studies, but also in that it played a significant part in the build-up of dynastic power in symbolic and representational terms. The last section deals with the historical context in which those legends were created and received. The story of the founding of Vijayanagara under the auspices of a ‘Hindu’ saint seems to have been conceived within the framework of the cultural tradition of south India, but in it can be detected an echo of the political norms of the ‘Islamicate’ world that engulfed south India during the Vijayanagara period.
