Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c9.s3: 3. Changālvas
Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c9.s3
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3. Changālvas
c9.s3.1
The Changālvas or Changāluvas were a line of kings ruling for a long period in the west of the Mysore District and in Coorg. Their original territory was Changa-nāḍ (Hs 97), corresponding chiefly with the Hunsūr tāluq. They claim to be Yādavas (Hs 63, Yd 26) and of the Lunar race, descended from a king named Changālva, who was in Dvarāvatī, and having defeated Bijjalēndra, seized his titles. What these were does not appear, but the kings are generally styled mahā-maṇḍalika-maṇḍalēśvara. This Bijjala might perhaps be an early king of that name among the Kalachuryas (see above, p. 79), or one of the Śāntaras. The Changālvas became devoted Śaivas, and had as their family god Annadāni-Mallikārjuna on the Beṭṭadpur hill (in Hunsūr tāluq), which they called Śrīgiri, perhaps with reference to the Śaiva sacred place Śrīparvata or Śrīśaila in the Kurnool District. But they are first met with in Jain inscriptions at Panasoge or Hanasoge, to the south of the Kāvērī river in the Yedatore tāluq, where there are many ruined *basadis*. These, according to Yd 26, were sixty-four in number, and were set up by Rāma, the son of Daśaratha, the elder brother of Lakshmaṇa, and husband of Sītā. The Jain priests of the Hottage (or Pustaka) gachcha claim exclusive jurisdiction over basadis at Panasoge and at Tale-Kāvērī (in Coorg), which may perhaps have been the limits of the Changālva kingdom east and west.
c9.s3.2
One of the basadis or Jain temples at Panasoge set up by Rāma had been endowed by the Gangas, and was rebuilt by the king Nanni-Changālva. The Ganga gifts are ascribed in Yd 25 to Mārasimha-Dēva, and he ruled from 961 to 974. Nanni-Changālva, from his prenomen Rājēndra-Chōla, belongs to the beginning of the eleventh century. He is the first Changālva of whom we have any certain knowledge. But as their kingdom was conquered by the Chōlas at the time when the Ganga power was overthrown in 1004, the Changālvas must have been an established line of kings prior to that. Their inscriptions are found mostly in the Hunsūr and Yedatore tāluqs and in Coorg, where they occur as far west as Yedava-nāḍ and Beṭṭyet-nāḍ.
c9.s3.3
The subjugation of the Changālvas by the Chōlas seems to have been effected by their defeat at Panasoge by the Chōla general Panchava-mahārāya (Cg 46). The subsequent Changālva kings all had Chōla prenomens for nearly two centuries. But on the expulsion of the Chōlas from Mysore by the Hoysalas in 1116, the Changālvas came into collision with the latter. Ballāla I had led an expedition against them in about 1104 (Hn 162). Vīra-Ganga was applied to for a grant by their purānika in 1139 (Cn 199, 200). In 1145 Nārasimha is said (Ng 76) to have slain Changālva in battle, and seized his elephants, horses, gold, and new jewels. In 1155 Nārasimha’s general Chokimayya is said (Hn 69) to have brought the Changa king’s territory into subjection to his king, and in 1171 Sōvi-dēva, the Kadamba ruler of Banavase, having vowed to do it, put the Changālva king into chains (Sb 345). Changālva is named as one of the kings who paid homage to Nārasimha’s son Ballāla when as a prince he made a tour in the hill countries to the west (Bl 86). But Ballāla, when on the throne, had to send an expedition in 1174 under his general Beṭṭarasa against the Changālva king Mahadēva, who had retired to Pālpare, a fort in Kiggaṭnāḍ in south Coorg. Beṭṭarasa destroyed him, and made Pālpare the seat of his own government. But the Changālva Pemma-Vīrappa afterwards attacked him, aided by the Koḍagas (or Coorgs) of all the nāḍs (the earliest express mention of the Coorgs). Beṭṭarasa was near being totally defeated, but contrived to gain the victory (Hs 20). After this the Changālvas appear to have submitted to the Hoysalas. In 1245 they had their capital at Śrīrangapaṭṭaṇa, not Seringapatam, but the place in Coorg known as Koḍugu-Śrīrangapaṭṭaṇa, situated to the south of the Kāvērī, near Siddapur (Ag 53), and two kings, Sōma-Dēva and Boppa-Dēva, were ruling conjointly. In 1252 the Hoysala king Sōmēśvara was received by them on a visit (Ag 53) to Rāmanāthpura (on the north bank of the Kāvērī in Arkalgūd tāluq). Changālvas named Mali-Dēva and Harihara-Dēva are mentioned in 1280 and 1297 (Bl 89, Cg 54, 45, 59), but during the fourteenth century none are met with.
c9.s3.4
At the end of the fifteenth century they again appear, and Nanja-Rāja, who ruled from 1502 to 1533, was the founder of their new capital Nanjarājapaṭṭaṇa or Nanjarāyapaṭṭaṇa. It is in Coorg, to the north of the Kāvērī, where it turns north and becomes the common boundary of Mysore and Coorg. The kings now called themselves kings of Nanjarāyapaṭṭaṇa or Nanjarājapaṭṭaṇa, and this place still continues to give its name to the northern tāluq of Coorg. Nanja-Rāja’s younger brother Mahadēva is mentioned in Hs 63 and SB 103, but a genealogy of the Changālvas at this period is given in Hs 24 and 63. Mangarasa in his *Jayanṛipa-kāvya*, written in about 1509, says that his father was descended from the minister of the Changālva kings, and that the latter derived their origin from Krishna, that is, were Yādavas. Śrīkaṇṭha-Rāja, ruling in 1544 (Cg 26) seems to have been an important personage, and is distinguished by supreme titles (Hs 24). Piriya-Rāja, surnamed Rudragaṇa, who ruled from 1586 to 1607, rebuilt Singapaṭṭaṇa and named it after himself Piriyapaṭṭaṇa (Hs 15), the Periapatam in Hunsūr tāluq. In 1607 Tirumala-Rāja, the Vijayanagar viceroy at Seringapatam, made a grant of the Malalavāḍi country (Hunsur tāluq) to Rudragaṇa “in order that the worship of the god Annadāni-Mallikārjuna should not fail as long as the Nanjarāyapaṭṭaṇa kings of the Changālva family continued” (Hs 36). But Piriyapaṭṭaṇa was taken by the Mysore king in 1644, Vīra-Rājaiya, the ruling prince, falling in its defence, after putting to death his wives and children on seeing that his situation was desperate. This was the end of the Changālvas.