In a London museum, a visitor stops before a copy of an oil painting dated to about 1825. It shows Colin Mackenzie, a surveyor of the English East India Company, with three Indian helpers, one of them holding a telescope. A panel beside it explains that the empire Mackenzie studied ruled much of the south for over two centuries. Its kings fought neighbouring powers on their northern frontier, and they left inscriptions and temples across the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab. The visitor wants to learn more about this empire and the people who recorded its story.
Historians call this state the Vijayanagara Empire. What name did its contemporaries use for it?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Karnataka samrajyamu
Option (1) Hampi — Incorrect. Hampi is the name by which later local people remembered the ruined city, after the goddess Pampadevi.
Option (2) Bisnaga — Incorrect. Bisnaga is a foreign rendering of the city's name. People of the time used their own term for the empire.
Option (3) Dakshinapatha — Incorrect. Dakshinapatha is an old general term for the whole southern part of India. It describes a region, and the empire had its own name.
Option (4) Karnataka samrajyamu — Correct. People of the time called it the karnataka samrajyamu; the term Vijayanagara Empire is the historians' label.
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