Domingo Paes (sometimes spelt Pais) was a traveller from

Portuguese India The State of India, also known as the Portuguese State of India or Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded seven years after the discovery of the sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the ...

, who visited the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

, located on the southern portion of the

Deccan Plateau The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura Range, Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound ...

in around 1520. He journeyed together with a group of traders from what was then

Portuguese Goa The State of India, also known as the Portuguese State of India or Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded seven years after the discovery of the sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the ...

, which was the capital of other territories such as Portuguese Bombay. His visit took place during the reign of the Emperor Krishnadevaraya, Paes recorded his impressions of Vijayanagara in his work '' Chronica dos reis de Bisnaga'' ( Indo-Portuguese for "Chronicle of the kings of Vijayanagar"). His detailed account is one of the few known descriptions of that empire and of its capital, Vijayanagara (

Hampi Hampi or Hampe (), also referred to as the Group of Monuments at Hampi, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the town of Hampi in Vijayanagara district, east-central Karnataka, India. Hampi predates the Vijayanagara Empire; it is menti ...

), by a

chronicler A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, ...

from abroad. Paes reported, "The kingdom has many places on the coast of India, which are seaports with whom we are at peace, and some of them have

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

, in particular at ''Amcola'' ( Ankola), ''Mirgeo'' ( Mirjan),

Honor Honour ( Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is a quality of a person that is of both social teaching and personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as val ...

, Batecalla, Mamgalor, Bracalor and Bacanor." Paes also records that advanced irrigation technology allowed the kingdom to produce high yields of crops at very reasonable prices. He also describes a busy market of precious stones, and that the city was prospering. Its size in the eyes of the narrator, was comparable to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, with abundant vegetation, aqueducts and artificial lakes.Hampi on line
visited on 15 June 2009.

References

* . Repub. Adamant Media Corporation, 1982, . Includes a translation of the ''Chronica'' by Domingo Paes and Fernão Nunes about 1520 and 1535 respectively. * Radhakamal Mukerjee, "A history of Indian civilization", Hind Kitabs, 1958 (refers to Paes) * H. V. Sreenivasa Murthy, R. Ramakrishnan, ''A history of Karnataka, from the earliest times to the present day'', S. Chand, 1977

External links

* * 16th-century Portuguese explorers Portuguese Renaissance writers Portuguese travel writers Vijayanagara Empire 16th-century explorers Explorers of Asia Portuguese expatriates in Portuguese India Explorers of South Asia Historians of India {{Portugal-bio-stub