Chitradurga

Chitradurga rises among granite hills on the Karnataka plateau, its massive fortifications following the boulders and ridges of the terrain. Gates, walls, temples and tanks protected the seat of a line of Nayakas who built a powerful state in the centuries after Vijayanagara. The fort became the centre of their authority and a formidable prize for rival powers.

The Nayakas first held Chitradurga under Vijayanagara and later exercised independent power. Their chiefs fortified the hills and contested neighbouring rulers. In the eighteenth century the last Madakari Nayaka faced the rival ambitions of Haidar Ali of Mysore and the Marathas. He shifted alliances as their armies fought for control of central Karnataka. Haidar besieged the fort more than once; in 1779 he finally captured it and sent the chief and his family into captivity at Srirangapatna. Local tradition remembers Onake Obavva, the wife of a guard, who defended a narrow opening in the rocks with a pestle when enemy soldiers attempted to enter. The story survives beside the walls and gateways of the old Nayaka stronghold, whose fall brought Chitradurga into Mysore’s expanding kingdom.