Penukonda

Penukonda is a fortified town and an old centre of Jain learning in the southern Deccan. An inscription on its green-stone image of Parshvanatha records its consecration in 1359, and the town was the seat of a Jain Bhattaraka. Tamil Jain tradition remembers Penukonda as one of four centres of learning. Its temples and the tomb of the Sufi saint Baba Fakruddin speak to the town's varied religious life.

After Vijayanagara's defeat at Talikota in 1565, Tirumala moved the imperial capital to Penukonda, where it remained until 1592. The fort sheltered the court as the dynasty sought to maintain its power. In the following century the governor Koneti Naidu held Penukonda along with the forts of Rayadurgam and Kundurpi. Nawabs, Maratha leaders, Tipu Sultan and the Nizam of Hyderabad later held authority in the region.