Octagonal Bath
An eight-sided royal bathing pavilion ringed by pillars, on the eastern edge of the royal centre.
Open
6:00 am – 6:00 pm
Entry
Free entry
Best time to go
Any time
Time to spend here
About 25 minutes
Crowds
Usually quiet
Just off the Kamalapura–Hampi road on the eastern side of the royal centre. Small and quiet; a two-minute stop, lovely in low light.
Listen to the story
About this place
This graceful eight-sided tank was a private bathing pavilion for the Vijayanagara court. A pillared verandah runs around all eight sides of the sunken octagonal pool, and a raised platform at the centre once carried a domed canopy where bathers could sit. Water reached the bath through the city's remarkable network of stone-cut aqueducts and channels, the same engineering that fed the palaces and gardens nearby. Simple but beautifully proportioned, it is one of several bathing structures that show how much the Vijayanagara rulers valued water, comfort and clever hydraulics.
Where it is
Close by
Photo credits
- Octagonal Bath: Octagonal Bath, Rupesh Sarkar, 1 · Rupeshsarkar · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Octagonal Bath: Hampi-octagonalbath · Lakshmisharath · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Octagonal Bath: Octagonalbath-hampi · Lakshmisharath · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Octagonal Bath: Octagonal Bath · Shriram Swaminathan · CC BY-SA 3.0
