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Pampa Sarovar, near Anegundi and Hampi, Karnataka Watch the S1/E9 field reel: One temple. One sarovar. Three sacred ages—and a founding story attached to one of South India's greatest empires. At Pampa Sarovar, the landscape holds several kinds of memory at once. Local tradition connects the Vijayalakshmi Devi temple with Hakka and Bukka, Vidyaranya and the beginning of the Vijayanagara empire. The sarovar carries the story of Pampa Devi's tapasya. The Ramayana tradition brings Rama, Lakshmana and Shabari through this landscape. Beside the water, a cave is remembered as Shabari's place of seva and waiting. These accounts do not all belong to the same kind of evidence. Some are documented history. Some come from sacred literature. Some live as folklore at the site. To understand Pampa Sarovar, we have to hear each one in its own register. The temple where an empire is remembered to have begun The tradition told at the site is direct: Hakka and Bukka performed pooja h...

Rishimukha, near Anegundi and Hampi, Karnataka Watch the S1/E8 field reel: An empire built a bridge here. A German lady is buried here. A Swamiji has lived here for almost 100 years. This is Rishimukha. This is Nambikke. The woman who never left A foreigner—a German lady—came to Rishimukha. She believed the account of Sugriva's cave and Rama's alliance so deeply that she moved here. She built a small cottage and a small garden beside the cave. She stayed until she died. She is buried in her garden, right next to the cave at Rishimukha. She believed the account, made her life beside this place and never left. The garden location beside Rishimukha, marked in red A closer view of the garden location beside Rishimukha This account was told to us by Hanumanthappa Angadi , the guide who took us through this landscape. He lives in the village immediately beside Rishimukha. He grew up playing around this cave complex, spent time cleaning the caves as a child and personally p...

Rishimukha, near Anegundi and Hampi, Karnataka Watch the S1/E7 field reel: Watch S1/E7 on your preferred platform Instagram → YouTube Shorts → Facebook → TikTok → A life beside the cave Inside Rishimukha, Akul and I met an elderly Swamiji seated beside the cave complex. We were told that he is nearly 100 years old and has spent his life here. Photographing with permission: Before taking his photograph, we asked the Swamiji for permission. We photographed him only after he agreed. The guide accompanying us recalled seeing him here when the guide himself was a child. The Swamiji was already a young adult then, doing seva at the cave. Decades passed; he remained. That testimony is an oral recollection recorded during our field visit, not a documentary verification of the Swamiji's exact age or every year of residence. Its value lies in what the guide could personally remember: the same person, the same place and a lifetime of continuity. Why nearly 100 years matters The point ...

Rishimukha, near Anegundi and Hampi, Karnataka Watch the S1/E6 field reel: Watch S1/E6 on your preferred platform Instagram → YouTube Shorts → Facebook → TikTok → Before the crossing Akul and I were about to cross the narrow log bridge to Rishimukha when two white waterbirds appeared beside it. They called to each other, moved through the shallows and seemed completely unbothered by us. In the moment, we called them ducks. A viewer later asked the right question: ducks—or geese? Looking again at the original footage, the long curved necks, large bodies and orange-yellow bills identify them as domestic geese , not ducks. They resemble an Embden-type domestic goose, although the footage is not sufficient to assign a breed with certainty. Two white domestic geese beside the Rishimukha crossing The correction does not diminish the encounter. It makes the field record more precise: two geese, entirely unplanned, became the quiet opening to our return to Rishimukha. The crossing to...