Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c9.s13.5

c9.s13.5

After the fall of Vijayanagar, Venkaṭappa-Nāyak I assumed independence. He drove back the invasion of the Bijāpur forces commanded by Randulha-Khān, and extended his dominions on the north and east to Māsūr, Shimoga, Kadūr, and Bhuvanagiri (Kavaledurga), and on the west and south to the sea at Honore (North Kanara), by victory over the queen of Gersoppa, the pepper queen of the Portuguese, who was a feudatory of Bijāpur. At the same time he acquired territory down to the borders of Malabar, and established his power so firmly that he was able to add 50 per cent to the land assessment in great part of Kanara. His valour is said (Sh 2) to be like adamantine armour to the Karnāṭa country, and he is described as an elephant-goad to the rutting elephants the bounding Taulava kings, a sun to the darkness the Kirātas, a boundary mountain to stop the great ocean of Mlechchas ever seeking to overflow the South in victorious expeditions. In 1621 he re-established the maṭha at Śringēri (Sg 5), originally set up in the eighth century by Śankarāchārya (Sg 11), the abbot of which was instrumental in founding the Vijayanagar empire in 1336. By espousing the cause of the queen of Ola against the Bangār rāja, he came into collision with the Portuguese, who call him Venkapor, king of Canara. But their Viceroy at Goa, being anxious to secure the trade in pepper for Portugal against the English and Dutch, sent an embassy to him in 1623 to form an alliance.