popular destination<\/a> \u2013 over half a million people visit Hampi every year. Some of the temples are still active places of worship.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I come to this place, I am very happy. I do this for my family to pray for good health and a good future. I\u2019ve been coming here to worship since I was in my 50s. It\u2019s such a peaceful place,\u201d says pilgrim Maharaj Durgappa.<\/p>\n
Manjunat Gowda is a local guide. His family has lived here for three generations. He was born and raised at the heart of the ancient empire. The temples were his playground.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandparents came here 80 years ago. They settled down here. It was not a tourist destination, just a pleasant place to live. Many people would come here to worship. When pilgrims came to the temples, my grand father would offer them tea, coffee, or food, make them feel at home. He would treat them like guests of God,\u201d he tells us.<\/p>\n
Manjunat\u2019s family moved a few kilometres away from the site in 2011 when the pavilion area where their house was built was cleared for restoration. He has worked as a tour guide here for 15 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more than a thousand temples, but each one is different, because we have three different kinds of architecture. The first one is general architecture, the second is Hindu and Islamic architecture, and the third is fortifications and watchtowers like in military architecture. Hampi is a fantastic site \u2013 very beautiful,\u201d says Manjunat.<\/p>\n
But the growing number of pilgrims and tourists brings new challenges. Deputy Superintending Archaeologist N.C Prakash\u2019s main task is to restore the ruined sites but also to ensure the safety of monuments. The biggest problem today is garbage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to raise awareness among visitors because when people come here, they bring a lot of plastic, food and other things. We have installed dustbins, but knowingly or unknowingly \u2013 I don\u2019t know \u2013 they don\u2019t use the dustbins. So cleanliness really is something we have to raise awareness about,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
A group of locals is taking the issue seriously and has decided to get its hands dirty. Kiran Kumar runs a family guesthouse near the Virupaksha Temple. He and his friends join in to help keep the place clean.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a responsibility to keep Hampi clean,\u201d he tells us. \u201cSo with my friends here, we clean the place. We\u2019ve been doing this work for many years. We have an organisation called the Citizens\u2019 Rights Protection Forum, which we started in 2003. So we clean places like the riverbed, or the waterfalls area or the area around some other monument.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not hard to imagine just how magnificent Hampi was in its glory days. It is a mythical site that bears witness to a rich history, whose beauty and integrity must be preserved for future generations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“When I come to this place, I am very happy. I do this for my family to pray for good health and a good future. I’ve been coming here to worship since I was in my Fifties. It’s such a peaceful place.” The site of Hampi, in India\u2019s southwestern state of Karnataka, was the capital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1133,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}