One of the first tasks of the Project was to develop an understanding of the spatial layout of the city. This was no easy task considering the vast extent of the ruins (no less than 25 square kilometres in the main area alone), and the rugged landscape through which the urban remains were scattered. Based on our newly prepared maps and on the variation in of types of architecture across the site which they demonstrated, we were able to develop a zonal concept of the city, which we divided into Sacred Centre, Urban Core and Royal Centre. Though by no means perfect, we have retained this nomenclature through the years since it has proved useful in distinguishing the different urban configurations and functions of the city.

A three-phase urban model distinguishes the different ways in which the Vijayanagara kings were spatially related to their empowering divinities. From the foundation of the city, the kings were empowered by Pampa/Virupaksha, whose cult they supported at Hampi and in the Royal Centre (Underground Temple). Within the Royal Centre the kings were integrated into a divine paradigm represented by the god Rama. Our symbolic-functional analysis of the layout of the Royal Centre suggests a division into two complimentary areas: a Zone of Royal Performance and a zone of Royal Residence. These zones are separated by a north-south axis that passed through the Hazara Rama Temple, which functioned as a state chapel for the kings. Thus, we interpret Rama as a divinity who was at the generative core of the king’s capital, and who embodied the different activities of the Vijayanagara king. Furthermore, when this north-south axis is extended northwards, it passes through Matanga hill, the Kodandarama Temple and Anjenadri Hill, all of which are associated with the Ramayana epic. The axis also marks the area primarily containing Shaiva shrines (west) from that containing Vaishnava shrines (east). An early Shaiva temple on the north bank of the Tungabhadra River is also on this axis and balances the Kodandarama Temple on the south bank. In these ways, the mythological landscape of the city was integrated into the architectural configuration of the Royal Centre and the larger urban area.

As far as we can judge, this Ramayana based paradigm of urban form at Vijayanagara was partly an invention of the 15th century, the date of construction of the Hazara Rama Temple. By the 16th century, however, this model seems to have been modified. The king sat at the core of a constellation of powerful divinities, whose temples complexes in the Sacred Centre and Suburbs surrounded the Royal Centre.

Further explication of this interpretation is to be found in Fritz, Michell and Nagaraja Rao 1984, Where Kings and Gods Meet: The Royal Centre at Vijayanagara and in Fritz 1986, "Vijayanagara: Authority and Meaning" and in Fritz 1989, "The Plan of Vijayanagara" (see Project Publications). For the role of the Ramachandra Temple in the arrangement of the capital link to Fritz 1991, "Urban Context" and for the relation of the plan to Indian theoretical texts link to Fritz 1991, "The Plan of Vijayanagara and Silpasastras".