Raichur (formerly Raichore) is a city and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the district of Raichur in the Indian

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

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 ...

. Raichur, located between

Krishna Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...

and Tungabhadra rivers, is the headquarters of Raichur district. It is located 409 km from the state capital,

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

History

Raichur has a rich history, having been a part of various empires, such as the Bahmanis Sultanate,

Vijayanagara Vijayanagara () was the capital city of the historic Vijayanagara Empire. Located on the banks of the Tungabhadra River, it spread over a large area and included the modern era Group of Monuments at Hampi site in Vijayanagara district, Bellary ...

, the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur and

nizam of hyderabad The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...

. The city is famous for its imposing

Raichur Fort Raichur Fort (Kannada: ರಾಯಚೂರು ಕೋಟೆ) is a fortress located on a hilltop in the heart of the Raichur in North Karnataka. The Raichur region (Raichur Doab) has been ruled by several families; the Kakatiya dynasty, Rashtraku ...

. Here, stone inscriptions have been found in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

which belonged to the bastion of the fort, referring to its construction in 1294. Among the ruins of the immense fort are many

irrigation tank In Sri Lanka and India an irrigation tank or tank is an artificial reservoir of any size. They are part of a historic tradition of harvesting and preserving rainwater in the region. Often an embankment such as a mud bank was constructed across a sl ...

s and old temples. The fort was built by

Kakatiya The Kakatiya dynasty (IAST: Kākatīya) was an Indian dynasty that ruled most of eastern Deccan region comprising present day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and parts of eastern Karnataka and southern Odisha between 12th and 14th centuries. Th ...

king Rudra in 1284 CE which passed on to the Vijayanagar kingdom after the decline of the Kakatiyas. Thereafter the fort was under dispute for nearly two centuries. It was captured by the Bahmanis in 1323 CE. Saluva Narasimha Raya expressed a wish in his testament that the city of Raichur be recaptured. This had been in the mind of Krishnadevaraya since his coronation in 1509. In the year 1520 Krishnadevaraya sent Saeed Maraikar, a Muslim in his service, to Goa with a large sum of money to buy horses. Maraikar instead went to Adil Khan with the money and offered his services. Krishnadevaraya made a demand that Maraikar be returned along with the money which was duly refused. During the period of peace, Krishnadevaraya made extensive preparations for a grand attack on Raichur doab. After the court decided that Raichur should be attacked the king invited all commanders (Nayakas) in his service to take part in the

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

. Raichur is very rich from the epigraphical point of view. It has already yielded hundreds of inscriptions, ranging from the

Mauryan The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...

period up to the end of the Muslim period. The inscriptions are in a variety of languages such as

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

, Arabic, and Persian and belonging to almost all the dynasties that ruled over the Deccan. The most important places from this point of view are

Maski Maski is a town and an archaeological site in the Raichur district of the state of Karnataka, India.Amalananda Ghosh (1990), p282 It lies on the bank of the Maski river which is a tributary of the Tungabhadra. Maski derives its name from Mahasan ...

Koppal ''Koppal'' is a district headquarters of Koppal district in the Indian state of Karnataka. Koppal is surrounded on three sides by hills. It was known as Kopana Nagara. The town has historical landmarks such as the Koppal Fort, Gavimath (a rel ...

Kuknur Kuknoor (also known as Kuknur, Kukkanur or Kukanoor) is a town in Kukanoor taluk in the Koppal District of the Indian state of Karnataka, which is located about 40 km northwest of Hospet and 7 km from the Mahadeva Temple in Itagi. Kuk ...

Hatti Gold Mines Hatti Gold Mines, also spelled Hutti, is a notified area council in Raichur district in the Indian state of Karnataka. The mines are owned and operated by Hutti Gold Mines Limited. Hatti is situated in Raichur District, Karnataka State and ...

Mudgal Mudgal is a panchayat town in Lingsugur taluk, Raichur district in the Indian state of Karnataka. Mudgal is about 10 miles south-west of Lingsugur. Mudgal has several inscriptions belonging to the Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri. It is known for its ...

Lingsugur Lingasugur is a municipal town in Raichur district in the Indian state of Karnataka. There are many Temples, hills and forts (Quila). The festivals of Muharram and Maha Shivaratri are important here. Mudgal in Lingasugur taluk has a very ancien ...

and Raichur. The District of Raichur was a part of the

Hyderabad State Hyderabad State () was a princely state located in the south-central Deccan region of India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and t ...

until the re-organisation of State on 1 November 1956. The recorded history of the district is traced to as far back as the third century B.C. The fact that three minor rock edicts of

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...

are found in district one at Maski in the Lingasugur taluk and the other two near Koppal, which proves that this area was included in the dominions of the great Mauryan king Ashoka (273 - 236 B.C.). At that time, this region was under the governance of the Viceroy or Mahamatra of Ashoka. Early in the Christian era, the district appears to have been a part of the kingdom of the

Satavahanas The Satavahanas (''Sādavāhana'' or ''Sātavāhana'', International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ), also referred to as the Andhras in the Puranas, were an ancient Indian dynasty based in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan region. Mos ...

. The

Vakatakas The Vakataka dynasty () was an ancient Indian dynasty that originated from the Deccan in the mid-3rd century CE. Their state is believed to have extended from the southern edges of Malwa and Gujarat in the north to the Tungabhadra River in the ...

, who reigned during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., seems to have held sway over Raichur for some time, after which it appears to have been included in the Kadamba dominions. The next dynasty of importance, which ruled over this region, was that of the

Chalukyas of Badami 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 ...

. According to an inscription from Aihole, Pulikeshi-II having defeated the

Pallavas The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of South India, the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahanas, Satavahana dynasty, with whom they ...

, occupied this area and made it a province in his empire under the governance of his son Adityavarma. Later the whole of the present Raichur district was included in the dominions of the Rashtrakutas, who rose to power in the eighth century, as could be gathered from the inscriptions of that period found in this district. According to an inscription from Manvi taluk, Jagattunga, a subordinate ruler under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna-II, was ruling the province of Adedore Eradusavirapranta, i.e., the area constituting the present Raichur district. Nripatunga, a Rashtrakuta king, has described Koppal in his Kannada work, Kavirajamarga, as the great Kopananagara.

Geography

Raichur is located at on

Deccan plateau The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...

. It has an average elevation of 407 metres (1335 ft) The summers get really hot in this region with temperatures going beyond 40 °C. It receives rainfall during the months between May to August. Overall, the region is warm and humid during most part of the year.

Demographics

As of the 2001 India

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

, Hinduism is majority religion in Raichur with 57.61% followers. Islam is second most popular religion in Raichur with approximately 39.87% following it. In Raichur, Christianity is followed by 1.18%, Jainism by 0.94%, Sikhism by 0.08% and Buddhism by 0.08%. Around 0.00% stated 'Other Religion', approximately 0.29% stated 'No Particular Religion'. The official language is Kannada, but Urdu and Telugu are also spoken in large proportion.

Climate

References

External links