Rayadrug Town
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Rayadrug Town
Head-quaiters of the taluk of the same name in Bellary Distnct, Madras, situated in 14 42' N and 76 51' E Population (1901), 10,488 Rayadrug means 'king's hill-fortress,' and the place is so named fiom the stronghold on the rocky hill at the foot of which it is built The hill consists of two parts, one considerably highei than the other, connected by a low saddle. The citadel is on the higher peak, 2,727 feet above the sea; but the enclosing walls of the fortress surround both the heights and the saddle between them, and run, it is said, for a distance of 5 miles round the bill. Though the gates are in ruins, the lines of walls which remain show what a formidable stronghold it must have been in days gone by On the saddle, and even higher up the rock, are a number of houses which are still occupied, and the cultivation of vegetables from the water m the many tanks on the hill is a thriving industry.
The place is said to have been originally a stronghold of some Bedars, whose disoiderly conduct compelled the Vijayanagai kings to send an officer, named Bhupati Raya, to i educe them to submission. He turned them out of the place and ruled it himself, and the hill \\as called after him Bhupali-Rayamkonda, or more shoitly Rayadiug Later it fell into the hands of the chief of Kmidurpi Drug in Anantapur District , and his family built the greater part of the fortifications on the hill, and raised the place to the important position it held in the petty wars of the Deccan. The height of its power was reached in the middle of the eighteenth century. Haidar All was friendly to the chief, but his son and successor Tipu treacherously seized the place and confined its owner at Senngapatam When Tipu was killed in 1799 a member of the chief's family took possession of the fort, but he attempted to excite disturbances and was almost immediately deported to Hyderabad by the Nizam's officers. When Bellary District was ceded to the Company in 1800, he was transferred to Gooty, where he resided on a maintenance allowance as a quasi-state prisonei till his death. Pensions were granted to the members of his family, which several of their descendants continue to draw.
On the hill on which the fort stands aie several temples, some rums of the former chiefs' residences, a Jam temple, and some curious Jam figures carved upon the face of the rocks in a place known as Rasa Siddha's hermitage. Rasa Siddha, says local tradition, was a sage who lived in the days when a king named Rajarajendra ruled over Raya- drug This king had two wives. The elder of these bore a son, who was named Sarangadhara and grew into a very beautiful youth. The younger wife fell in love with him. He i ejected her advances, and she took the time-honoured revenge of telling her husband that he had attempted her virtue. The king ordeied that his son should be taken to the rock called Sabbal Banda, two miles north of Rayadrug, and there have his hands and feet cut off. The order was obeyed. That night Rasa Siddha found the pnnce lying there and, knowing by his powers of second sight that he was innocent, applied magic herbs which made his hands and feet to glow again. The prince piesented himself to his father, who saw from the portent that he must be inno- cent and punished the wicked wife. The hermitage is now occupied by an ascetic from Northern India, and on Sundays Hindus of all classes, and even Musalmans, go up the hill to break coco-nuts there. It consists of three cells with cut-stone doorways built among a pile of enormous boulders, picturesquely situated among fine trees. On four of the boulders are carved the Jain figures referred to.
Rayadrug town contains two or three broad and regular streets, and many narrow and irregular lanes. Its industries include a tannery, the weaving of silk fabrics, and the manufacture of borugulu^ or rice soaked in salt water and then fried on sand until it swells. Trade is conducted largely with Bellary, but also with Kalyandrug and with the neighbour- ing villages in Mysore. Now that the railway to Bellary has been completed, that town's share of the commerce will doubtless increase rapidly.
