The ruins of Vijayanagara were brought to light in the seventeenth century by:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Colin Mackenzie
The ruins at Hampi were brought to light by Colonel Colin Mackenzie, an engineer and antiquarian of the English East India Company, who prepared the first survey map of the site.
Note 1: It seems that there is a mistake in the original NTA paper, which prints ‘in the seventeenth century’ when it should read ‘in 1800’.
Note 2: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| 11-05 S2* 23-05 S2* 29-05 S2* | 16-05 S1 19-05 S1* 28-05 S1* | – | 30-05 S1 05-06 S3* 06-06 S3 13-06 S1* 23-06 S3* | – |
* A similar question.
NCERT (2026-27): “…In 1565 the city was sacked and subsequently deserted. Although it fell into ruin in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, it lived on in the memories of people living in the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab. They remembered it as Hampi, a name derived from that of the local mother goddess, Pampadevi. These oral traditions combined with archaeological finds, monuments and inscriptions and other records helped scholars to rediscover the Vijayanagara Empire.… 1. The Discovery of Hampi … The ruins at Hampi were brought to light in 1800 by an engineer and antiquarian named Colonel Colin Mackenzie. An employee of the English East India Company, he prepared the first survey map of the site.…” |