Kaulas Fort (Kowlas Fort) is a historic fort in western

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 3 ...

in India. It was constructed by

Rashtrakutas Rashtrakuta ( IAST: ') (r. 753-982 CE) was a royal Indian dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing the ...

in the 9th century CE. It later came under the rule of

Chalukyas The Chalukya dynasty () was a Classical Indian dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynas ...

Badami Badami, formerly known as Vatapi, is a town and headquarters of a taluk by the same name, in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka, India. It was the regal capital of the Badami Chalukyas from CE 540 to 757. It is famous for its rock cut monuments ...

, the Kakatiyas,

Musunuri Nayaks The Musunuri Nayakas were warrior kings of 14th-century South India who were briefly significant in the region of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Musunuri Kapaya Nayaka is said to have taken a leadership role among the Andhra chieftains and driv ...

, Bahmani Sultanate, Qutub Shahis,

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Marathas The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...

and, finally, the Asaf Jahi rulers of the Hyderabad State. It is in the

Kamareddy district Kamareddy district is a district located in the northern region of the Indian state of Telangana. The district shares boundaries with Medak, Nizamabad, Sangareddy, Siddipet and Rajanna Sircilla districts and with the state boundary of Maharas ...

, near the trijunction of Telangana,

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

and Maharashtra states. It has historically served as a strategic outpost contested by many kingdoms. KOWLAS CREST 2

History

The history of the fort dates back to the 9th century AD. According to historians, it was built in Indra IV’s period of the Rashtrakuta dynasty in their political capital and was later captured by the Chalukyas of the Kalyani dynasty in the third quarter of the 10th century before it was captured by the Kakatiyas in the 12th century. The Kakatiya kingdom, which ruled from present day Warangal, held the Kowlas Fort till 1323 AD, a period more or less parallel to the one and only Kakatiya woman ruler, Rani Rudrama Devi. Later, the Kowlas region is said to have come under the rule of the Bahmanis, Qutb Shahis, Yadavas, Naikwaries, Mughals, Devagiri, Kalyani, Marathas, etc and finally under the Asaf Jahis (Nizams) (1724 to 1948). Aurangzeb appointed Raja Pathamsingh Gaur as governor of Kaulas for this province. His descendants Asaf Jahi were vassals of the Nizam kings and played an important role in the protection of their kingdom. In 1724, The Nizams appointed Raja Gopal Singh Gaur, a Kshatriya or Rajput, as the Chief of Kowlas in the 1720s. Along with Koulas, Kantar and Mahur forts in Maharashtra were also under his control . Initially this family lived in Kantar. Gopal Singh's descendants ruled the kingdom of Kaulas until 1915. Raja Deep Singh played a leading role in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 and was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the British. The Nizam canceled his inam and restored the kingdom to his son. The last king, Durjan Singh, died prematurely, and in 1915 the institution was declared Khalsa (meaning directly under the rule of the Nizam ). The annual revenue of the institution was then 22,517 rupees. It is said that after the declaration of Kowlas village as a Khalsa, the Nizams placed the village under supervision of Maulvi Jamaluddin Sheikh, a

zamindar A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as ...

(landlord) of Turkish descent belonging to the Barlas clan and a descendant of Timur the conqueror . His sons held the position of zamindar until the Partition of India.

History of the village

Kaulas has the ruins of an ancient fort dating back to the Kakatiya period. There are many caves on the nearby hill. Anantagiri Temple, Kalyanaramadasu Mandir and Shankaracharya Temple are famous temples in Kaunas. Kaulas original name is Kailasa Durgam. It became popular in recent times as Muslim rulers called it Kaulas. After the end of the Kakatiya Empire , the Bahmani Sultans captured Kaulas Durga. Several battles were fought between the Bahmanis and the Musunuri chieftains centered around Kaulas Durga . Hasan Gangu gave the Koulas fort to the Kapaya leader and concluded a truce.

Village population

According to the 2011 India census, the village is spread over 1850 hectares with 491 houses and a population of 2186. The number of males in the village is 1178, the number of females is 1008. The number of scheduled castes is 328 while the number of scheduled tribes is 170. The census location code of the village is 571106 .Pin code: 503305.

References

{{Forts in India Tourist attractions in Telangana History of Telangana Forts in Telangana Medieval India Hyderabad State Archaeological sites in Telangana Populated places established in the 9th century Kamareddy district