Defence Architecture in Early North Karnataka c3.1

c3.1

Karnātaka is a land of temples, veeragals and Mahāsati-kals and thus is one of the important regions of art and architecture in India. But its importance as power, can be traced at least from the period of Satavahana rule over the northern part of Karnātaka, the seat of powerful political powers continuously in the following periods such as the Banavāsi Kadambas, the Bādāmi Chālukyas, the Rāṣtrakūṭas, the Kalyāṇa Chālukyas and the last, but at the same time, the greatest the Vijayanagar. Their capitals were respectively at Banavāsi, Bādāmi, Malkhēd, Kalyāṇa and Hampi. Banavāsi was also the capital of the earliest known rulers namely the Chutus, the feudatories of the imperial Sātavāhanas. And in all these places and also in the places which were the Head-quarters of the feudatories of these imperial dynasties, particularly the Kalyāṇa-Chālukyas, are the forts now in ruins built by the imperial kings and their feudatories, designed and constructed in response to the requirements of the times to defend the capitals from external attacks and ensure internal security. In the ancient period from the beginning of the Satavahanas to the end of the Kalyāṇa Chālukyas and the Sēvuṇas the boundary of the region was varying in the north from the Narmadā to the Gōdavari and downwards. Here the term Karnataka is taken to mean the area bound by the present administrative and political boundaries. So far our study is concerned it has been limited to those forts within the present political and administrative boundary of Karṇāṭaka, for all the capitals of the imperial dynasties are within this area.