History · Ch 7 — An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara
Water resources
Water resources
The most striking feature about the location of Vijayanagara is the natural basin formed by the Tungabhadra River, which flows in a north-easterly direction. The landscape around the city is dominated by stunning granite hills that seem to form a girdle around it. A number of streams flow down to the river from these rocky outcrops.
In almost all cases, embankments were built along these streams to create reservoirs of varying sizes. This was essential because this is one of the most arid zones of the peninsula. Elaborate arrangements had to be made to store rainwater and conduct it to the city.
The most important such tank was built in the early years of the fifteenth century and is now called the Kamalapuram tank. Water from this tank not only irrigated fields nearby but was also conducted through a channel to the "royal centre". …
Source 3 — How tanks were built. About a tank constructed by Krishnadeva Raya, Paes wrote:
The king made a tank … at the mouth of two hills so that all the water which comes from either one side or the other collects there; and, besides this, water comes to it from more than three leagues (approximately 15 kilometres) by pipes … This water is brought from a lake which itself overflows into a little river. The tank has three large pillars handsomely carved with figures; these connect above with certain pipes by which they get water when they have to irrigate their gardens and rice-fields. In order to make this tank the said king broke down a hill … In the tank I saw so many people at work that there must have been fifteen or twenty thousand men, looking like ants … …
The photograph in Figure 7.5 shows a stone aqueduct — essentially a raised channel built of large, dressed stone blocks — that once carried water into the royal centre of Vijayanagara. The aqueduct is clearly visible as a long, straight, trough-like structure, supported on a solid masonry base. It runs across open, rocky ground, with the characteristic granite hills of the Vijayanagara landscape visible in the background.
This aqueduct was part of the city's elaborate water system, which the textbook describes in detail. The caption tells us it led into the royal centre, meaning it was one of the channels that brought water from a storage reservoir — most likely the Kamalapuram tank — to the area where the king's palaces and administrative buildings stood. The photograph therefore illustrates the physical evidence of how water was conducted over a distance, using gravity, to supply the heart of the city.
What the image teaches is that Vijayanagara's rulers invested heavily in hydraulic engineering. In an arid region, simply storing rainwater in tanks was not enough; the water had to be moved to where it was needed. The stone aqueduct in the photograph is a durable, visible reminder of that effort. It shows that the channel was not a simple earthen ditch but a carefully built stone structure, designed to last and to minimise water loss. The fact that it survives as a ruin today confirms the scale and permanence of these waterworks. …