Hey guys, I am at the ancient Vitthala temple in Hampi, and I just found out - there are strange holes drilled all around the temple. It appears that no one has noticed them, because they are not easy to find, unless you examine these walls very closely. These series of holes are just about a centimeter wide. How did ancient builders drill these holes on granite, which is one of the hardest rocks in the world? Today, we use diamond tipped drill bits to create such holes on granite, but how was it done in ancient times? But there is something much more fascinating. Directly above this series of holes, we can see another row of holes, a little bit bigger than the ones below. And there is a third row of holes right above this as well, making the pattern much more complex.
But the most important question is not how they drilled these holes, but why? Why were these holes drilled all around the temple? Archeologists say these were created for mere decoration, for simple reasons like placing flowers or incense sticks all around the temple, but these theories are not convincing. Is there a way to find out if these holes were made for mere decoration or if they were an important part of the temple's design? See, the ancient builders were extremely intelligent, they predicted these structures would be destroyed in the future by human beings. So they created a small 3d model of the temple within the temple itself which details the most important aspects of the temple. Here you can see that this model shows how the original temple looked before it was destroyed by invaders. It was complete, with multiple levels and finished with these objects called Kalasha which is how a finished temple would look. But why am I randomly showing you this model, while discussing about the holes in the temple? Because, if these holes around the temple were carved for a very important reason, the 3d model would also have these holes. If they were drilled for mere decoration, it won't be detailed in the model because the model only shows you the most important features of the temple.
So, I examined this model to see if there are any holes carved on it, and I find exactly what I am looking for. Here are a series of very minute holes carved in the model, these holes are actually just 1 millimeter wide. I think I have just discovered the smallest holes ever drilled in ancient times. I mean, 1 millimeter holes on granite, created by ancient builders - How is something like this even possible without the help of machines? Remember, this whole city of Hampi is full of evidence about ancient machining technology and I showed you how they used lathe machines in my previous video.. you can click on the card on the top right corner to see it.
So these minute holes on the model prove that the holes were not created for mere decoration, but an important part of the temple's design. But the big question that needs to be answered is this: Why were these holes drilled all around the temple? Remember, I have shown you something very similar in Brihadeeswara temple which was built a thousand years ago, and this structure also has these minute holes all around its base. Why do these ancient temples have minute holes drilled all around the base?
To understand this, we have to examine what ancient temples actually represent. You might wonder why ancient Indian temples always look like rocket spacecraft, well they were in fact designed specifically to look like spacecraft. The main structure inside any temple complex is called Vimana, which actually means aircraft or spacecraft.
All Hindu temples have this Vimana, which is always aerodynamically shaped. This structure at Hampi has been destroyed, but from the model, we can clearly see that this Vimana is also aerodynamically shaped with multiple levels.