Photograph with a view looking down onto the group of Jain temples south of the Virupaksha Temple at Vijayanagara (Beejanuggur) in Karnataka.

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.