“From this first circuit until you enter the city there is great distance, in which are fields in which they sow rice and have many gardens and much water…comes from two lakes.” Identify the traveller and the city?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Domingo Paes and Vijayanagara
These are the words of Domingo Paes, the Portuguese visitor to Vijayanagara. The fortification walls of Vijayanagara enclosed not only the city but also agricultural tracts. Abdur Razzaq too noted fields, gardens and houses between the walls, but the lines about the first circuit, the rice fields and the water from two lakes are Paes’s. Present-day archaeologists have found evidence of this agricultural tract between the sacred centre and the urban core.
NCERT (2025-26): “3.2 Fortifications and roads … What was most significant about this fortification is that it enclosed agricultural tracts. Abdur Razzaq noted that ‘between the first, second and the third walls there are cultivated fields, gardens and houses’. And Paes observed: ‘From this first circuit until you enter the city there is a great distance, in which are fields in which they sow rice and have many gardens and much water, in which water comes from two lakes.’ These statements have been corroborated by present-day archaeologists, who have also found evidence of an agricultural tract between the sacred centre and the urban core.…” |