Conservationists working on a forgotten Hoysala-era subterranean palace in rural Hassan district have uncovered a series of 'Echo Halls' designed for Vedic chanting. The walls of these underground chambers are carved with hyper-parabolic curves that amplify low-frequency sounds, allowing a single chanter’s voice to resonate through the entire five-story structure.
This acoustic engineering was likely used for secret initiations and royal spiritual discourses. The project, led by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), is now using laser-scanning to map these 'Sonic corridors' to understand the medieval Indian mastery of non-electronic sound projection.