Thuggee was a real phenomenon of highway robbery in the Indian subcontinent in which gangs murdered and robbed travellers, often by strangling them. In the early 1800s, as the East India Company expanded its rule, British officials portrayed it as a secret pan-Indian religious fraternity with ancient roots, motivated by fanaticism. Under William Henry Sleeman, a policing campaign in the 1830s and the Thuggee Department established in 1835 built cases largely from informants' interviews. Most contemporary historians now see the Thugs as ordinary criminals, some of them soldiers from a Mughal order collapsing under British conquest.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.