01The Keladi capital
Virabhadra Nayaka moved the Keladi capital from Ikkeri to Bidanur, also called Nagara, in 1639, to a site in the hills above the Kanara coast that was easier to defend. Shivappa Nayaka, who ruled from 1645, made it the centre of a kingdom running down to the sea, took the coastal forts from the Portuguese, and fixed the land revenue by soil, a settlement that later rulers kept. Chennamma, widow of Somashekhara Nayaka, ruled from Bidanur from 1671. In 1689, when Aurangzeb’s armies were hunting Shivaji’s younger son Rajaram after Sambhaji’s capture, she gave him safe passage south to Jinji and then held off the Mughal force sent against her.
02Haidarnagar and after
In 1763 Haidar Ali of Mysore marched on Bidanur, took the capital and with it the accumulated treasure of the Nayakas, which helped pay for his later wars, and renamed the town Haidarnagar. In 1783 a British force under General Mathews took Bidanur; Tipu Sultan won it back the same year and Mathews died in his captivity. The town shrank after the Keladi court was gone. Today Nagara, in Hosanagara taluk, keeps the walls and gateways of the fort, the ruins of the palace, the Neelakanteshwara temple, and the Devaganga ponds, terraced tanks built for the royal household.
The life of this place
- 1639Virabhadra Nayaka moves the Keladi capital from Ikkeri to Bidanur.
- 1689Rani Chennamma shelters Chhatrapati Rajaram and resists the Mughals.
- 1763Haidar Ali captures Bidanur and renames it Haidarnagar.
- 1783Taken by the British under Mathews and retaken by Tipu Sultan.
