The Gooty Fort, also known as Ravadurg, is a ruined fort located on a hill in the

Gooty Gooty ( ) is a town in Anantapur district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the headquarters of Gooty mandal in Anantapur revenue division. The town is renowned for the Gooty hill fort. Geography Gooty is located at , at a dis ...

town of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. The word Gooty (locally pronounced "Gutti") is derived from the town's original name, Gowthampuri. It is one of the centrally protected monuments of national importance.

History

Eight inscriptions have been found on the rocks close to the Narasimha temple located within the fort premises. These inscriptions are seriously damaged, but appear to be from the reign of the

Western Chalukya The Western Chalukya Empire ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannadiga dynasty is sometimes called the ''Kalyani Chalukya'' after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan in th ...

king

Vikramaditya VI Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076 – 1126 CE) became the Western Chalukya King after deposing his elder brother Someshvara II, a political move he made by gaining the support of Chalukya vassals during the Chola invasion of Chalukya territory.Sen ...

(r. c. 1076-1126 CE). The earliest of the existing fortifications and other structures can be dated to the late Chalukya period. The fort later came under the control of the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and Mahar ...

. During the reign of

Venkata II Venkatapati Raya (or Venkata II, r. 1585–1614 CE) was the younger brother of Sriranga Deva Raya (also the youngest son of Tirumala Deva Raya ) and the ruler of Vijayanagara Empire with bases in Penukonda, Chandragiri and Vellore. His r ...

(r. c. 1584-1614), the Vijayanagara lost the fort to the

Qutb Shahi dynasty The Qutb Shahi dynasty also called as Golconda Sultanate (Persian: ''Qutb Shāhiyān'' or ''Sultanat-e Golkonde'') was a Persianate Shia Islam dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the co ...

. The

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 ...

appear to have controlled the fort after their conquest of the Qutb Shahi capital

Golconda Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparu ...

. Around 1746 CE, the

Maratha 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 a ...

general

Murari Rao Murari Rao Ghorpade (1699-1779), known simply as Murari Rao, was an army general in the Maratha Army from Gooty who administered the fort of Tiruchirappalli and surrounding areas from 1741 to 1743. His administration marks the only period of Marat ...

captured the fort, and made it his permanent residence eight years later. He repaired the fort, and commissioned the

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

ornamentation of the small gateways. In 1775 CE, the

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude o ...

ruler

Hyder Ali Hyder Ali ( حیدر علی, ''Haidarālī''; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the att ...

attacked and besieged the fort. After two months, Murari Rao was forced to surrender, as he ran out of water supplies. The fort later came under the control of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

. Its administrator

Thomas Munro Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (27 May 17616 July 1827) was a Scottish soldier and British colonial administrator. He served as an East India Company Army officer and statesman, in addition to also being the governor of Mad ...

was buried at the cemetery located at the foothill.

Architecture

The fort is located on a group of hills that rise up to 680 m above the sea level. The hills are connected by lower spurs. The citadel of the fort is located on the westernmost hill. It has only one entrance known as "Mar Gooty." The summit of the citadel has two buildings, apparently a granary and a

gunpowder magazine A gunpowder magazine is a magazine (building) designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety. Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications ...

. The ruined

Narasimha Narasimha ( sa, नरसिंह, lit=man-lion, ), sometimes rendered Narasingha, is the fourth avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. He is regarded to have incarnated in the form of a part-lion, part-man being to slay Hiranyakashipu, to end rel ...

temple is located near the summit. On a 300 m high cliff, there is a small pavilion called "

's seat", which provides a panoramic view of the town below. It is said that the

general Murari Rao used to play chess and

swing Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing ri ...

here. The lower fortifications comprise a series of ramparts, which are connected by gateways and flanked by

bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

s. Numerous reservoirs excavated on the rock clefts were used to trap the seasonal rainwater. 108 wells were also dug within the fort walls. There are several ruined buildings within the fort, including granaries, storerooms, and magazines. Some of these were used as prisons by the

administrator

References

{{Forts in Andhra Pradesh Forts in Andhra Pradesh Buildings and structures in Anantapur district Monuments of National Importance in Andhra Pradesh