The name 'Hampi' has been derived from
1. Pampadevi
2. Virupaksha
3. Lakshmi
4. Gajalakshmi

1

The name "Vijayanagara," meaning the "city of victory," applied to both a city and an empire. This empire, established in the fourteenth century, once extended from the northern banks of the river Krishna to the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula. However, in 1565, the city was ransacked and subsequently abandoned. Although it gradually decayed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the memory of Vijayanagara endured among the people residing in the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab. They remembered it by the name "Hampi," which derived from the local mother goddess, Pampadevi. These oral traditions, coupled with archaeological discoveries, preserved monuments, inscriptions, and other historical records, aided scholars in the rediscovery of the Vijayanagara Empire.