About the Book:
Prominent types of architecture are visible around us: religious, civil and defense. These cannot be defined in a rigid manner as such their nomenclature indicates. Most of the fundamentals of building material and purposeful features are same. Merely the functional utilities of the buildings diverge in their utilization and purpose.

This book deals with the study of buildings and structures of Historical site of Vijayanagara Empire of 13th -15th centuries, which can be, categorized as secular on the basis of their functional utility. The site at Vijayanagara city provided ample raw material for building, and the huge massifs of rock were often themselves sculpted to produce a unique architecture that is part organic, part man-made and often is difficult to distinguish from natural features.

The work is based on analysis of physical remains and corroborating the information from epigraphical and foreign and vernacular literary sources. The book contains six chapters dealing with various segments of architectural landscape of the Vijayanagara site.

About the Author:
Dr. Priya Thakur is Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies and Research in History and Archaeology, Tumkur University, Tumkur, Karnataka since 2010. She did her Masters in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology from DDU Gorakhpur University in 2002 and obtained her PhD from University of Mysore in 2009. Dr. Thakur has worked as a Research Trainee in Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore from 2008-10. She has completed two projects funded by UGC (MRP: 2013-15) and ICHR (2011-13) and presently working on another project funded by ICHR (2018-19) New Delhi. She is life member for many national and international societies such as Indian Art History Congress, Epigraphical Society of India, Society for South Asian Archaeology and Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies and many others. Her research interests lie mainly in archaeo-astronomy, archaeology, epigraphy, onomastics and art and architecture. She has published more than forty research papers in national and international edited volumes, journals and proceedings.