Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Trip to Chitradurga


Recently I had been to chitradurga fort. It is a magnificent fort with seven layers of wall in circum circle for defense against enemies. It is called yeelu suthina koote in Kannada .
Chitradurga, on the highway linking Bangalore with Hospet, is famed for its massive Kallina Kote (Palace of Stone) fort, a marvel of military architecture made impregnable by the Nayak Palegars. It has 19 gateways, 38 posterior entrances, a palace, a mosque, granaries, oil pits, four secret entrances and water tanks. And the legend of obbavva , During the rein of Madakari Naayaka, the city was besieged by the troops of Haider Ali. A chance sighting of a woman entering the fort through a crack in the rocks led to a clever plan by Hyder Ali to send his soldiers through the crack. The guard on duty had just gone home for his lunch break and his wife Obavva was his temperory replacement. Noticing the soldiers emerging out of this crack, Obavva was not perturbed. Using the Onake (wooden stick used for pounding grain) she killed and quietly moved the dead, so that hundreads of them entered and fell, without raising any suspicion. The guard, Obavva's husband almost had a heart attack, when he returned from his lunch break. His wife was standing there with a blood stained Onake and strewn around her were the bodies of soldiers.
Here are some of the photos of that magnificient fort.

1 comment:

Karthik CS said...

cool kaNo.. More pics please