Jagadevipalayam

Jagadevipalayam lay beneath a double-peaked hill in the Baramahal country. Its western summit was called Devalapadi and its eastern summit Jagadevidurgam, where the principal fort dominated the settlement below. The place was associated with the family of Jagadeva Raya, military chiefs connected with the later Vijayanagara court, and was remembered as a capital of the twelve mahals from which the region took its name.

The family's fortunes linked this hill fort to campaigns farther north. In 1589 Jagadeva Raya II defended Penukonda against a Golconda army and received Chennapatna as a reward; the grant led him to transfer his capital there from Jagadevi. Later generations continued to hold the Baramahal, but Mysore's expansion under Chamaraja weakened their position. Jagadevipalayam's history thus followed a military family's shifting centres of power: the fort guarded its immediate settlement while service, grants and conquest connected it to other courts across the southern plateau.