When the caparisoned elephants led by Abhimanyu begin their stately march from the Mysuru palace to bring the curtains down on the 10-day Dasara festival on Tuesday, it will be a redux of a Vijayanagar tradition well-documented by medieval travelers and modern historians.
Though the empire had long disappeared, the Wadiyars of Mysuru inherited the custom and celebrated it on a grand scale from 1610 CE onwards. The festival fascinated the travellers then as it does now and is among the most well documented cultural practices by writers and artists alike.
Italian traveler Nicolo-Dei-Conti was the first to write about the Navaratri celebrated in the Vijayanagar kingdom which he visited sometime during the reign of Devaraya II (1426-1446 CE) He speaks of a festival ‘’which lasts nine days’’ in an obvious reference to Navaratri.
