History of Bangalore
Bangalore is the capital city of the state of Karnataka. Bangalore, as a city, was founded by Kempe Gowda I, who built a mud fort at the site in 1537, but the earliest evidence for the existence of a place called Bangalore dates back to c. 890. The Gangas ruled Gangavadi from Kolar starting c. 350 and shifted their capital to Talakadu.. An article, published in The Hindu, states:) An inscription, dating back to 890 AD, shows Bangalore is over 1,000 years old, but it stands neglected at the Parvathi Nageshwara Temple in Begur near the city... written in hale Kannada of the 9th Century, the epigraph refers to a Bangalore war in 890 AD in which Buttanachetty, a servant of Nagatta, died. Though this has been recorded by historian R. Narasimhachar in his "Epigraphia of Carnatica", no efforts have been made to preserve it; the inscription stone found near Begur reveals, that the district was part of the Ganga Kingdom ruled from Gangavadi until 1024 C. E and was known as'Benga-val-oru', the City of Guards in old Kannada.
Edgar Thurston states that the Kongu region was ruled by a series of twenty eight kings before being conquered by the Cholas of Tanjore, citing the earliest portion of the Kongu Chronicle - Kongu Desa Rajakkal which gives a series of short notices of the reigns of all the kings who ruled the country from the start of the Christian era till its conquest by the Cholas. These kings belonged to two distinct dynasties: the earlier line of the Solar race which had a succession of seven kings of the Ratti tribe, the line of the Ganga race, itself claimed to be a branch of the Solar race. In 1024 C. E, the Chola Empire captured the city. Today, little evidence can be seen of this period. A small village in south Bangalore and one in Anantapur district bear the Chola name but the residents are of native stock; the Gangas fought alongside the Chalukyas and the Hoysalas. In 1117 C. E, the Hoysala king Vishnuvardhan defeated the Cholas in the battle of Talakad which led to the Hoysalas regaining control of Talakkad.
A popular anecdote recounts that the 11th-century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman; the grateful king named the place "benda kaal-ooru", colloquialised to "Bengalūru". There are theories that the name has a floral origin and is derived from the tree Benga or "Ven-kai" known as the Indian Kino Tree; the city as it is known today was named by Kempe Gowda I. There is an inscription dated 1628 C. E in the Ranganatha Temple in Telugu; the English translation of, "Be it well, When Rajadhi-Raja-Parameshwara Vira Pratapa Vira-Maha-Deva Maharaya seated in the Jewel throne was ruling the empire of the world: When of the Asannavakula, the Yelahanka Nadu Prabhu Kempanacharya-Gauni's grandson Kempe Gowda's son, Immadi Kempegaunayya was ruling a peaceful kingdom in righteousness with the decline of the Vijayanagar empire, the eclipse of the rule of Yelahanka Nadu Prabhus took place at the dawn of the 17th century."
Kempe Gowda I, Modern Bangalore was founded by a feudatory of the Vijayanagara Empire, who built a mud fort in the year 1537. Kempe Gowda referred to the new town as his "gandu bhoomi" or "Land of Heroes". Within Bangalore, the town was divided into petes or market; the town had two main streets: Chickkapete Street ran east-west and Doddapete Street ran north-south. Their intersection formed Doddapete square — the heart of Bangalore. Kempe Gowda's successor, Kempe Gowda II, built temples, tanks including Kempapura and Karanjikere tanks and four watching towers that marked Bangalore's boundary; the four watchtowers built at the time in Bangalore are still seen today in the following places which are: Lal Bagh Botanical Garden Kempambudhi Tank Ulsoor Lake Mekhri Circle It was captured by the Maratha chief Shahaji Bhosale, father of Shivaji working for the Adil Shahi sultans of Bijapurin 1638. During the siege of Bangalore, Shivaji's elder brother Sambhaji/Shambhuji was killed by Shahaji's rivals, led by the Ghorpade of Mudhol, for which Shivaji was to exact revenge.
After conquering the Sultanate of Bijapur, the Mughals under the commandership of Khasim Khan arrived in Bangalore, ruled by Shivaji's brother Veankoji/ Ekoji Bhonsale as a jagir of Bijapur in 1686. The Mughals in turn sold Bangalore to the Kingdom of Mysore's ruler Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar in 1689 for three lakhs which he had negotiated with Venkoji / Ekoji Bhonsle. Bangalore was given as a personal Jahgir by the Woedeyar King Immadi Krishna Raja Wodeyar to Haider Ali made in 1759, but by 1761 he was proclaimed as the Saravadhikari of the Kingdom. When Hyder Ali died in 1782, his son Tipu Sultan deposed the weak Wodeyar, proclaimed himself Sultan. Under Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali the state progressed economically and trade flourished with many foreign nations through the ports of Mangalore. Several attempts by the British to capture Bangalore were repulsed by the Mysorean Army, most notably in 1768 when Hyder Ali forced Colonel Nicholson of the British Army to lift his siege of Bangalore; the French under Napoleon had promised to drive the British from India.
Tipu stalled the British in the first and third Anglo-Mysore Wars. Bangalore fort was captured by the British armies under Lord Cornwallis on 21 March 1791 during the Third Anglo-Mysore War and formed a centre for British resistance agai
Bangalore
Bangalore known as Bengaluru, is the capital city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of over ten million, making it a megacity and the third most populous city and fifth most populous urban agglomeration in India, it is located in southern India on the Deccan Plateau at an elevation of over 900 m above sea level, the highest among India's major cities. It reflects its multireligious and cosmopolitan character by its more than 1000 temples, 400 mosques, 100 churches, 40 Jain derasars, three Sikh gurdwaras, two Buddhist viharas and one Parsi fire temple located in an area of 741 km² of the metropolis; the religious places are further represented to include the few members of the Jewish community who are making their presence known through the Chabad that they propose to establish in Bengaluru and the large number of Bahá'ís whose presence is registered with a society called the Bahá'í Centre. In 1537 CE, Kempé Gowdā – a feudal ruler under the Vijayanagara Empire – established a mud fort considered to be the foundation of modern Bengaluru and its oldest areas Or Petes which exist to the present day.
After the fall of Vijayanagar empire in 16th Century, the Mughals sold Bangalore to Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore for three lakh rupees. When Haider Ali seized control of the Kingdom of Mysore, the administration of Bangalore passed into his hands, it was captured by the British East India Company after victory in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, who returned administrative control of the city to the Maharaja of Mysore. The old city developed in the dominions of the Maharaja of Mysore and was made capital of the Princely State of Mysore, which existed as a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj. In 1809, the British shifted their cantonment to Bangalore, outside the old city, a town grew up around it, governed as part of British India. Following India's independence in 1947, Bangalore became the capital of Mysore State, remained capital when the new Indian state of Karnataka was formed in 1956; the two urban settlements of Bangalore – city and cantonment – which had developed as independent entities merged into a single urban centre in 1949.
The existing Kannada name, Bengalūru, was declared the official name of the city in 2006. Bengaluru is sometimes referred to as the "Silicon Valley of India" because of its role as the nation's leading information technology exporter. Indian technological organisations ISRO, Wipro and HAL are headquartered in the city. A demographically diverse city, Bangalore is the second fastest-growing major metropolis in India. Bengaluru has one of the most educated workforces in the world, it is home to many educational and research institutions in India, such as Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Management, International Institute of Information Technology, National Institute of Fashion Technology, National Institute of Design, National Law School of India University and National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. Numerous state-owned aerospace and defence organisations, such as Bharat Electronics, Hindustan Aeronautics and National Aerospace Laboratories are located in the city.
The city houses the Kannada film industry. The name "Bangalore" represents an anglicised version of the Kannada language name and its original name, "Bengalūru" ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, it is the name of a village near Kodigehalli in Bangalore city today and was used by Kempegowda to christen the city as Bangalore at the time of its foundation. The earliest reference to the name "Bengalūru" was found in a ninth-century Western Ganga Dynasty stone inscription on a "vīra gallu". In this inscription found in Begur, "Bengalūrū" is referred to as a place in which a battle was fought in 890 CE, it states that the place was part of the Ganga Kingdom until 1004 and was known as "Bengaval-uru", the "City of Guards" in Halegannada. An apocryphal story recounts that the 12th century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman; the grateful king named the place "benda-kaal-uru", which evolved into "Bengalūru". Suryanath Kamath has put forward an explanation of a possible floral origin of the name, being derived from benga, the Kannada term for Pterocarpus marsupium, a species of dry and moist deciduous trees, that grew abundantly in the region.
On 11 December 2005, the Government of Karnataka announced that it had accepted a proposal by Jnanpith Award winner U. R. Ananthamurthy to rename Bangalore to Bengalūru. On 27 September 2006, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike passed a resolution to implement the proposed name change; the government of Karnataka accepted the proposal, it was decided to implement the name change from 1 November 2006. The Union government approved this request, along with name changes for 11 other Karnataka cities, in October 2014, hence Bangalore was renamed to "Bengaluru" on 1 November 2014. A discovery of Stone Age artefacts during the 2001 census of India at Jalahalli and Jadigenahalli, all of which are located on Bangalore's outskirts today, suggest probable human settlement around 4,000 BCE. Around 1,000 BCE, burial grounds were established at Koramangala and Chikkajala on the outskirts of Bangalore. Coins of the Roman emperors Augustus and Claudius found at Yeswanthpur and H
Kannada cinema
Kannada cinema known as Chandanavana or Sandalwood, is the Indian film industry based in the state of Karnataka where motion pictures are produced in the Kannada language. The Kannada film Industry is sometimes metonymously referred to as Sandalwood; as of 2017, the Kannada film industry based in the city of Bengaluru produces more than 190 films each year. Kannada films are released in more than 1250 single screen and multiplex theaters in Karnataka and most of them are released across the country and in the United Kingdom, United States, UAE, England, Brazil, Nederland, Russia, South Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries; the first government institute in India to start technical courses related to films was established in 1941 named as occupational institute called the Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic in Bengaluru. In September 1996, two specialized courses and Sound & Television were separated and the Government Film and Television Institute was started at Hesaraghatta, under the World Bank Assisted Project for Technician Development in India.
The industry is known for Kannada language literary works. Some of the works which received global acclaim include B. V. Karanth's Chomana Dudi, Girish Karnad's Kaadu, Pattabhirama Reddy's Samskara, which won Bronze Leopard at Locarno International Film Festival, Girish Kasaravalli's Ghatashraddha which won the Ducats Award at the Manneham Film Festival Germany. Films such as Bedara Kannappa, School Master, Vamshavruksha, Bhootayyana Maga Ayyu, Kaadu Kudure, Ranganayaki, Pushpaka Vimana, Tabarana Kathe, Thaayi Saheba, A, Dweepa, Apthamitra, Mungaru Male, Sangolli Rayanna, Lucia, Mr. and Mrs. Ramachari, RangiTaranga, Uppi 2, Kirik Party, Doddmane Hudga, Kotigobba 2, Killing Veerappan, Tagaru, K. G. F: Chapter 1 are some of the landmark films in recent times. In 1934, the first Kannada talkie, Sati Sulochana, appeared followed by Bhakta Dhruva. Sati Sulochana was shot in Kolhapur at the Chatrapathi studio. In 1949, Honnappa Bhagavathar, who had earlier acted in Gubbi Veeranna's films, produced Bhakta Kumbara and starred in the lead role along with Pandaribai.
In 1955, Bhagavathar again produced a Kannada film, Mahakavi Kalidasa, in which he introduced actress B. Saroja Devi. Rajkumar became famous during this period working in Kannada film industry, his wife Parvathamma Rajkumar founded Film production and distribution company, Vajreshwari Combines. Vamshavruksha, Prema Karanth's Phaniyamma, Kaadu Kudure, Accident, Mooru Daarigalu, Tabarana Kathe, Bannada Vesha and Puttanna Kanagal's Naagarahaavu were released. Vishnuvardhan and Ambareesh were the two stars born from the film Naagarahaavu. Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan are considered the two pillars of Kannada Cinema. Shankar Nag was starred in works such as Malgudi Days. Tiger Prabhakar, Ananth Nag, Dwarakish, Srinath, M. P. Shankar, Sundar Krishna Urs were the prominent actors who came in this period with Kalpana, Lakshmi, Padma Vaasanthi, Madhavi, Saritha and Jayamala being some of the actresses; the late 80's saw the emergence of V. Ravichandran and Shivarajkumar and Ramesh Aravind with works directed by Rajendra Singh Babu, D. Rajendra Babu, H. R. Bhargava, Sai Prakash, T. S. Nagabharana and M. S. Rajashekar.
Directors Puttana Kanagal and Shankar Nag died. Bhavya, Sudha Rani, Malashri, Anjali Sudhakar, Vanitha Vasu and Shruthi were the notable actress of the era. At present actors like Puneeth Rajkumar Darshan,Sudeep, Shiva Rajkumar, Ganesh, Duniya Vijay, Vijay Raghavendra, Prajwal Devraj, Rakshit Shetty, Sharan, Chiranjeevi Sarja, Dhruva Sarja,MG Srinivas, Prashanth Neel Pawan Kumar [[Dhananjay Rishab Shetty are contributing themselves as in Kannada industry. Heroines like Radhika Pandit, Amulya, Pooja Gandhi, Aindritha Ray, Rashmika Mandanna, Ragini Dwivedi, Shanvi Srivatsava, Rachita Ram, Shruthi Hariharan, Deepa Sannidhi, Meghana Raj, Manvitha Harish, Radhika Chetan, Pranitha Subhash, Avantika Shetty, Shraddha Srinath, Samyuktha Hegde, Parul Yadav, Sanjana are made hit in Kannada cinema. Comedians like Chikkanna, Sadhu Kokila, Bullet Prakash, Kuri Prathap are busy themselves in film shooting. Karnataka State Film Awards Udaya Film Awards Suvarna Film Awards Bangalore International Film Festival Filmfare Awards South SIIMA Awards IIFA Utsavam Mirchi Music Awards South South Scope Awards List of Kannada-language films Media in Karnataka Cinema of India Media of India List of Kannada film actresses Media related to Kannada-language films at Wikimedia Commons
Kingdom of Mysore
The Kingdom of Mysore was a kingdom in southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. The kingdom, ruled by the Wodeyar family served as a vassal state of the Vijayanagara Empire. With the decline of the Vijayanagara Empire, the kingdom became independent; the 17th century saw a steady expansion of its territory and during the rule of Narasaraja Wodeyar I and Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar, the kingdom annexed large expanses of what is now southern Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu to become a powerful state in the southern Deccan. The kingdom reached the height of its economic and military power and dominion in the latter half of the 18th century under the de facto ruler Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. During this time, it came into conflict with the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Kingdom of Travancore and the British, which culminated in the four Anglo-Mysore Wars. Success in the first Anglo-Mysore war and a stalemate in the second was followed by defeat in the third and fourth.
Following Tipu's death in the fourth war of 1799, large parts of his kingdom were annexed by the British, which signalled the end of a period of Mysorean hegemony over southern Deccan. The British restored the Wodeyars to their throne by way of a subsidiary alliance and the diminished Mysore was transformed into a princely state; the Wodeyars continued to rule the state until Indian independence in 1947, when Mysore acceded to the Union of India. As a princely state, Mysore came to be counted among the more developed and urbanised regions of India; this period saw Mysore emerge as one of the important centres of art and culture in India. The Mysore kings were not only accomplished exponents of the fine arts and men of letters, they were enthusiastic patrons as well, their legacies continue to influence music and art today. Sources for the history of the kingdom include numerous extant lithic and copper plate inscriptions, records from the Mysore palace and contemporary literary sources in Kannada and other languages.
According to traditional accounts, the kingdom originated as a small state based in the modern city of Mysore and was founded by two brothers and Krishnaraya. Their origins are still a matter of debate. Yaduraya is said to have married Chikkadevarasi, the local princess and assumed the feudal title "Wodeyar", which the ensuing dynasty retained; the first unambiguous mention of the Wodeyar family is in 16th century Kannada literature from the reign of the Vijayanagara king Achyuta Deva Raya. The kings who followed ruled as vassals of the Vijayanagara empire until the decline of the latter in 1565. By this time, the kingdom had expanded to thirty-three villages protected by a force of 300 soldiers. King Timmaraja II conquered some surrounding chiefdoms, King Bola Chamaraja IV, the first ruler of any political significance among them, withheld tribute to the nominal Vijayanagara monarch Aravidu Ramaraya. After the death of Aravidu Aliya Rama Raya, the Wodeyars began to assert themselves further and King Raja Wodeyar I wrested control of Srirangapatna from the Vijayanagara governor Aravidu Tirumalla – a development which elicited, if only ex post facto, the tacit approval of Venkatapati Raya, the incumbent king of the diminished Vijayanagar empire ruling from Chandragiri.
Raja Wodeyar I's reign saw territorial expansion with the annexation of Channapatna to the north from Jaggadeva Raya – a development which made Mysore a regional political factor to reckon with. By 1612–13, the Wodeyars exercised a great deal of autonomy and though they acknowledged the nominal overlordship of the Aravidu dynasty and transfers of revenue to Chandragiri stopped; this was in marked contrast to other major chiefs Nayaks of Tamil country who continued to pay off Chandragiri emperors well into the 1630s. Chamaraja VI and Kanthirava Narasaraja I attempted to expand further northward but were thwarted by the Bijapur Sultanate and its Maratha subordinates, though the Bijapur armies under Ranadullah Khan were repelled in their 1638 siege of Srirangapatna. Expansionist ambitions turned southward into Tamil country where Narasaraja Wodeyar acquired Satyamangalam while his successor Dodda Devaraja Wodeyar expanded further to capture western Tamil regions of Erode and Dharmapuri, after repulsing the chiefs of Madurai.
The invasion of the Keladi Nayakas of Malnad was dealt with successfully. This period was followed by one of complex geo-political changes, when in the 1670s, the Marathas and the Mughals pressed into the Deccan. Chikka Devaraja, the most notable of Mysore's early kings, who ruled during much of this period, managed to not only survive the exigencies but further expanded territory, he achieved this by forging strategic alliances with the Marathas and the Mughals. The kingdom soon grew to include Salem and Bangalore to the east, Hassan to the west and Tumkur to the north and the rest of Coimbatore to the south. Despite this expansion, the kingdom, which now accounted for a fair share of land in the southern Indian heartland, extending from the Western Ghats to the western boundaries of the Coromandel plain, remained landlocked without direct coastal access. Chikka Devaraja's attempts to remedy this brought Mysore into conflict with the Nayaka chiefs of Ikkeri and the kings of Kodagu.
Vibhutipura Lake
Vibhutipura Lake is in Bangalore, India. Vibhuthipura Lake is part of this network and one lake it was connected to is the Doddenakundi Lake. Article on The Hindu original image of vibhutipura lake, the above two images are not http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/Vibhutipura-lake-A-success-story-in-making/2013/12/11/article1940010.ece
Chalukya dynasty
The Chalukya dynasty was a Classical Indian royal dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three individual dynasties; the earliest dynasty, known as the "Badami Chalukyas", ruled from Vatapi from the middle of the 6th century. The Badami Chalukyas began to assert their independence at the decline of the Kadamba kingdom of Banavasi and rose to prominence during the reign of Pulakeshin II. After the death of Pulakeshin II, the Eastern Chalukyas became an independent kingdom in the eastern Deccan, they ruled from Vengi until about the 11th century. In the western Deccan, the rise of the Rashtrakutas in the middle of the 8th century eclipsed the Chalukyas of Badami before being revived by their descendants, the Western Chalukyas, in the late 10th century; these Western Chalukyas ruled from Kalyani until the end of the 12th century. The rule of the Chalukyas marks an important milestone in the history of South India and a golden age in the history of Karnataka.
The political atmosphere in South India shifted from smaller kingdoms to large empires with the ascendancy of Badami Chalukyas. A Southern India-based kingdom took control and consolidated the entire region between the Kaveri and the Narmada rivers; the rise of this empire saw the birth of efficient administration, overseas trade and commerce and the development of new style of architecture called "Chalukyan architecture". Kannada literature, which had enjoyed royal support in the 9th century Rashtrakuta court found eager patronage from the Western Chalukyas in the Jain and Veerashaiva traditions; the 11th century saw the patronage of Telugu literature under the Eastern Chalukyas. While opinions vary regarding the early origins of the Chalukyas, the consensus among noted historians such as John Keay, D. C. Sircar, Hans Raj, S. Sen, Kamath, K. V. Ramesh and Karmarkar is that the founders of the empire at Badami were native to the modern Karnataka region. A theory that they were descendants of a 2nd-century chieftain called Kandachaliki Remmanaka, a feudatory of the Andhra Ikshvaku was put forward.
This according to Kamath has failed to explain the difference in lineage. The Kandachaliki feudatory call themselves Vashisthiputras of the Hiranyakagotra; the Chalukyas, address themselves as Harithiputras of Manavyasagotra in their inscriptions, the same lineage as their early overlords, the Kadambas of Banavasi. This makes them descendants of the Kadambas; the Chalukyas took control of the territory ruled by the Kadambas. A record of Eastern Chalukyas mentions the northern origin theory and claims one ruler of Ayodhya came south, defeated the Pallavas and married a Pallava princess, she had a child called Vijayaditya, claimed to be the Pulakeshin I's father. However, according to the historians K. V. Ramesh and Sastri, there are Badami Chalukya inscriptions that confirm Jayasimha was Pulakeshin I's grandfather and Ranaraga, his father. Kamath and Moraes claim it was a popular practice in the 11th century to link South Indian royal family lineage to a Northern kingdom; the Badami Chalukya records.
While the northern origin theory has been dismissed by many historians, the epigraphist K. V. Ramesh has suggested that an earlier southern migration is a distinct possibility which needs examination. According to him, the complete absence of any inscriptional reference of their family connections to Ayodhya, their subsequent Kannadiga identity may have been due to their earlier migration into present day Karnataka region where they achieved success as chieftains and kings. Hence, the place of origin of their ancestors may have been of no significance to the kings of the empire who may have considered themselves natives of the Kannada speaking region; the writing of 12th century Kashmiri poet Bilhana suggests the Chalukya family belonged to the Shudra caste while other sources claim they were Kshatriyas. The historians Jan Houben and Kamath, the epigraphist D. C. Sircar note the Badami Chalukya inscriptions are in Sanskrit. According to the historian N. L. Rao, their inscriptions call them Karnatas and their names use indigenous Kannada titles such as Priyagallam and Noduttagelvom.
The names of some Chalukya princes end with the pure Kannada term arasa. The Rashtrakuta inscriptions call the Chalukyas of Badami Karnatabala, it has been proposed by the historian S. C. Nandinath that the word "Chalukya" originated from Salki or Chalki, a Kannada word for an agricultural implement. Inscriptions in Sanskrit and Kannada are the main source of information about Badami Chalukya history. Among them, the Badami cave inscriptions of Mangalesha, Kappe Arabhatta record of c. 700, Peddavaduguru inscription of Pulakeshin II, the Kanchi Kailasanatha Temple inscription and Pattadakal Virupaksha Temple inscription of Vikramaditya II provide more evidence of the Chalukya language. The Badami cliff inscription of Pulakeshin I, the Mahakuta Pillar inscription of Mangalesha and the Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin II are examples of important Sanskrit inscriptions written in old Kannada script; the reign of the Chalukyas saw the arrival of Kannada as the predominant language of inscriptions along with Sanskrit, in areas of the Indian peninsula outside what is known as Tamilaham.
Several coins of the Badami Chalukyas with Kannada legends have been found. All this indicates. Travelogues of contemporary foreign travellers have provided useful information about the Chalukyan
Bengaluru Pete
Bengaluru Pete is an area of Bangalore city, established by Kempegowda I in 1537 with roads laid out in the cardinal directions, entrance gates at the end of each road. Kempegowda termed the Pete he built as his "gandu bhoomi" or "Land of Heroes". Pete forms a well–defined body of markets which were associated with various trades and professions of the populace in the locality markets and given the names of trades pursued in such markets; the well known markets are the Tharagupete–market for grains, the Balepete – for Bangles and musical instruments, the Chikkapete and the Nagarthpete for textile trade, the Ballapurpete and the Ganigarapete market where oil is extracted by people of the Ganiga community, the Tigalarapete–flower market of gardeners, the Cubbonpete – textile manufacture by people of the Devanga community. The Bengaluru Pete, established in 1537 around the Mud Fort built by Kempe Gowda I as the nucleus, with an area of 2.24 square kilometres, has expanded to the present sprawling city of 741 square kilometres embracing a multi ethnic population of 5.7 million.
The other nicknames of the city reflect the growth direction of the city, such as the Silicon Valley of India, the "Fashion Capital of India," and "The Pub City of India."The old Pete, structured in the contemporary style of deep networks of crowded streets, richly represented the multi cultural identity, social history, economic geography of the times which are considered as a hallmark in the planning and design of any urban agglomerate. The place has left its mark on literature with novels like Riddle of the Seventh Stone being set in this part of Bangalore; these attributes have been further accentuated in the present day Bangalore city. It is now the third largest metropolis in India, the largest city in Karnataka state and the 28th largest city in the world. Though Bengaluru is chronicled to the period of 900 AD, but with confirmed history of the Bengaluru Pete traced to 1537, when Kempe Gowda I, a Chieftain of the Vijayanagara Empire held as the founder of modern Bangalore, built a mud fort and established the area around it as his province.
He was the great grand son of Jaya Gowda who established the Yelahankanada Prabhu clan, in 1418 AD and whose principality was in Yelahanka, north of the present day Bangalore. Kempegowda I, who showed remarkable qualities of leadership from his childhood, had a grand vision to build a new city, further fueled by his visits to Hampi the beautiful capital city of the Vijayanagar Empire, he persevered with his vision and got permission from the King Achutaraya, the ruler of the empire, to build a new city for himself. The King gifted 12 hoblis with an annual income of 30,000 varahas to his Chieftain Kempegowda to meet the expenses of his venture of building a new city. Kempegowda moved from his ancestral land of Yelahanka to establish his new principality, having obtained support from King Achutaraya. One version for the site selection process for the Bengalore Pete is that during a hunting expedition along with his advisor Gidde Gowda, he went westward of Yelahanka and reached a village called Shivasamudra some 10 miles from Yelahanka where, in a tranquil atmosphere under a tree, he visualised building a suitable city with a fort, a cantonment, tanks and people of all trades and professions to live in it for his future capital.
It is said that an omen of an uncommon event of a hare chasing away a hunter dog at the place favoured selection of the place and a dream of goddess Lakshmi that prophesied good indications of the events to happen further sealed his decision on the place for his capital. Following this event, on an auspicious day in 1537 A. D. he conducted a ground breaking ritual and festivities by ploughing the land with four pairs of decorated white bulls in four directions, at the focal point of the junction of Doddapet and Chikkapet, the junction of the present day Avenue Road and Old Taluk Kacheri Road. Thereafter, he constructed a mud fort, with a moat surrounding it. Building of the mud fort is steeped in a legend, a tragic but heroic story. During the construction of the Fort it was said that the southern gate would fall off no sooner than it was built and human sacrifice was indicated to ward off the evil spirits. Kempe Gowda permit any such event to occur, but his daughter-in-law, realising her father-in-Law's predicament, beheaded herself with a sword at the southern gate in the darkness of night.
Thereafter, the fort was completed without any mishap. In her memory, Kempegowda built a temple in her name in Koramangala. Thus, Kempegowda's dream fructified and the Bengaluru Pete evolved around the Mud fort called the Bangalore Fort; this mud fort was converted and enlarged into the present stone fort during Chikkadeva Raya Wodeyar's rule between 1673 AD – 1704 AD and Hyder Ali's rule, in 1761. It has been reported that Guru Nanak, the 1st Sikh Guru, on his way back from Sri Lanka halted at Bangalore. Kempegowda sought his blessings. Guru Nanak not only blessed Kempegowda but advised him to develop the place; the PeteThe Pete as built by Kempegowda I had two main streets, namely the Chikkapet Street, which ran east–west, the Doddapet Street, which ran north–south. Their intersection formed the Doddapete Square, the heart of Bangalo
