Photograph with a general view of a street, with the granite hillside beyond, at Vijayanagara in Karnataka. The street of pilgrims' houses leads up to the great temple at Humpee, one of the divisions of the town of Beejanuggur (Vijayanagara). Usually deserted, these streets were crowded during festivals and pilgrimages.

Vijayanagara, the City of Victory, was the seat of a powerful Hindu kingdom in Southern India from 1336 to 1565. Vijayanagara flourished as a prosperous centre of Hindu art, culture and architecture, until the Battle of Talikota in 1565. It was also an influential centre for trade, especially in Arab horses and spices. Its plan consisted of a number of zones, the sacred, the urban and the royal.