Place · Aravidu hill-fort capital · India
Penukoṇḍa
Also known as Penukonda, Ghanagiri
The fortified hill in Anantapur district to which the Aravidu survivors moved the Vijayanagara court after Talikota in 1565, and the capital for the next thirty-odd years — a granite massif with a Gagan Mahal, temples, a mosque and a Jain basti inside the walls.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 14.080, 77.590
Worth knowing
Penukonda was already important: Krishnadevaraya's brother governed from it, and the town holds a Parsvanatha basti of the Vijayanagara period alongside the Rama and Shiva temples. The court moved on again to Chandragiri and then Vellore as the Deccan sultanates pressed south.
Connections (3)
- Power passed toTalikota
The Aravidu survivors fell back on Penukonda after Talikota in 1565 and then on Chandragiri, ruling a shrinking territory for another eighty years. It was from Chandragiri in 1639 that the East India Company was granted the strip of coast on which it built Madras — so the last Vijayanagara court issued the charter for the first English settlement on the Coromandel, which is a tidy closing of one era into another.
- Successor capital ofHampi / Vijayanagara
After Talikota the surviving Aravidu rulers fell back first on Penukonda and then Chandragiri, ruling a shrinking territory for another eighty years. Chandragiri is where the East India Company was granted the site of Madras in 1639 — so the last Vijayanagara court issued the charter for the first English settlement on the Coromandel, which is a neat closing of one era into another.
- Successor capital ofChandragiri Fort
Penukonda from 1565 and Chandragiri from about 1592 are the Aravidu retreat, each move further south and east as Bijapur and Golconda pressed down. Both are hill forts rather than cities. The 1639 grant of Madraspatnam to the East India Company was issued from the second of them, so Fort St George rests on a title from a fort the empire had shrunk into.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Penukonda”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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