Vijayanagara was one of the most dazzling of the capitals of mediaeval India. The ruins of the city have awed travellers and scholars alike. But a historian, a woman who lives in Paris, says an empire by the name Vijayanagara never existed. She has created an uproar but insists the correct name is Karnataka empire. Vasundhara Filliozat has been working on the history of Karnataka since the early 1960s. She was born in Haveri in Dharwad district as the fifth child of Sanskrit and Kannada