পাতা:শ্রীরায় রামানন্দ - রসিকমোহন বিদ্যাভূষণ.pdf/৫৬০

(88 শ্ৰীয়ায় রামানন্দ । seems to have extended into one huge city of fortifica tions, palaces, water canals, temples, colleges, richly carved and decorated pavilions, bazaars, places of enjoyment, stables for elephants and horses, summer residences, smiling fruit gardens, council chambers, audience halls, public courts and offices. From north to south, on both the banks of the Thungabhadra or from Basavapatnam to Nagalapur, the favourite residence of Krishna Deva Raya ( modern Hospet ) the extreme length of Vijayanagar was about 14 miles, while from east to west with the Thungabhadra in the middle, the extreme breadth was about Io miles. This huge area, of about 40 square miles, was fully crowded with traders, consuls, ambassadors, military officers, wrestlers, singers, artisans, musicians, masons, dancers, Smiths, priests, foreign, adventurers, temple worshippers, engineers, trainers of horses and elephants. players of all descriptions, dancing girls and their numerous admirers and followers, poets and their pupils, bodyguards and palanquin-bearers, manufacturers, workmen of all grades, Governors and Viceroys, and those vast crowds of humanity whose business was to pander to the tastes ‘of the royalty and nobiiity and whose number alone would have given a very respectable population to any of our modern flourishing cities. "The city is declared,” says Mr. R. Sewell, "by a succession of European visitors in the fifteenth ind sixteenth centuries, to have been narvellous for its size and prosperity--a city with which for richness and magnificence no known Western Capital could compare."