Place · royal durbar platform · India
Mahanavami Dibba, Hampi
Also known as Dasara Dibba, Audience Hall platform, Great Platform
The Mahanavami Dibba ('Dasara Platform' or 'Great Platform') in the Royal Enclosure — a stepped granite platform 12 metres high and 25 metres on each side, built under Krishnadevaraya in c. 1515. The sides are faced in three horizontal bands of relief carvings: processions, royal courtiers, the king receiving ambassadors, Chinese and Portuguese traders, hunting scenes, dancers, and musicians. From the top of this platform, the Vijayanagara kings presided over the nine-night Mahanavami (Dasara) festival each autumn — the ceremonial display of royal power that the Mysore Wodeyar maharajas inherited in 1610 at Srirangapatna and continue at Mysore Palace to this day as Mysore Dasara, now the state festival of Karnataka.
- Date
- 1515
- Periods
- Vijayanagara
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Vijayanagara
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 15.338, 76.468
Connections (2)
- Site withinHampi / Vijayanagara
The Mahanavami Dibba platform stands at the north edge of the Royal Enclosure at Hampi. Built under Krishnadevaraya in c. 1515 as the stepped durbar from which the Vijayanagara kings presided over the nine-night Mahanavami festival each autumn — a ceremonial display at the heart of imperial legitimation.
- InspiredMysuru
The nine-night Mahanavami festival that Krishnadevaraya presided over from the Mahanavami Dibba at Hampi was inherited by the Wodeyar maharajas of Mysore when they moved their capital to Srirangapatna in 1610 and claimed the Vijayanagara legacy. The ceremony is still performed every autumn as Mysore Dasara — the state festival of Karnataka — with the Wodeyar maharaja receiving the royal durbar at Mysore Palace in direct imitation of the Hampi platform's ritual programme.