Vijayanagara Elephant Stables Interior

Dome over the stall's. Each stall has a different dome.







The building consists of eleven large rooms with very high ceilings. Large domes crown ten of these. These domes are of brick and mortar, and are of different shapes drum-shaped, ribbed and octagonal. The superstructure of the central upper pavilion is lost. It probably had a Hindu Sikhara in consonance with the Indo-Islamic architecture. The rooms were used as Elephant stables. The elephants were tied to chains hanging from the center of the ceiling as can be made out from the iron hooks embedded in some of the ceilings.

'Chaining them from the ceiling seems an odd form of restraint. Does anyone have any thoughts/ideas on why this would have been done?'