The Muslim armies, from present day Pakistan and Afghanistan, began their long slow conquest of India and the idolatrous Hindus who believed in multiple gods and not just one god,  Allah.

Up in Punjab, which borders Pakistan, the Hindus freaked and accepted the concept of one God to avoid conquest. These are the turban wearing Sikhs of today.

South of Punjab, Hindu India slowly was defeated. This conquest took over 400 years.

The remaining undefeated maharajahs grouped together in southern India and formed the city of Vijayanagara in 1336 to defend against the advancing Muslim armies.

Vijayanagara developed into a city of over 10,000,000 population, the second largest city on earth. It eventually fell to the Muslim invaders in 1646.

The city was so destroyed that it was abandoned and never rebuilt. The glorious stone buildings are still intact though most in stone piles. The majority of the structures were wood thus non exhistant.

Huge granite boulders were split into slabs using the technique employees by the Egyptians. They would chisel out 3″x3″x5″ deep holes in a line across the top of the boulder then pound in the same size wood plugs. Water was then applied and the pressure of the wood expansion would split the granite all the way through.

Unique to this palace were the columns which were carved out of solid granite into many mini columns. These hundreds of columns were used as musical instruments and played by percussionists as dancers danced for the king and queens pleasure. Our guide gave a musical demonstration in the following video.

For a 100 year period, architectural facades were influenced by Chinese architectural styles. The sandstone carvings included Chinese and Mongolian figures.

X Rated. Sex Ed. 101

The stables for the king’s 11 processional elephants.

Being so into the beauty and reverence of Hinduism, these chaps tried to talk me into joining them on their pilgrimage to Kerala. Barefoot and fasting for 41 days. The barefoot and fasting wasn’t an issue but no wine was the killer. I wished them well.