Episode 1 - Birth and History of Bengaluru

This week we will discover how Bengaluru was born and whats the history of Bengaluru. I am at the Parvathi Nageshwara temple near Begur. Bengaluru was ruled by Western Ganga dynasty from 4th century to 10th century AD. Its here where it all started in 890AD.
Here you will find stone inscription in Halle Kannada script which was discovered by the famous historian R Narasimhachar an ephigraphist .
This stone inscription talks about the Bengaluru war in 890 AD.
There is also a stone inscription which says Bengaluru was a place of prominence then during the reign of western gangas. There is a description of Veergallu in mollahalli script ..this is the Veergallu which was erected in respect to the soldiers who fought the war in 890AD. There is a very famous story of Bengaluru getting its name because of his brother raja veeraballalad . He was lost in forest and tired an old lady offered him boiled groundnuts and this came to be known as bendakaluru ..bendakalu means boiled groundnuts and bendakalu means place where you get boiled groundnuts ...this name was later known as Bengaluru. Theres another story about a tree known as benga or venkai. In 1004 AD Bengaluru was captured by Cholas later in 1117 AD Cholas were defeated by the great king Vishnuvardhana in the battle of talakhad to win Bengaluru. We then go to the historical Bangalore fort. Then it was the time of Vijayanagara Dynasty Shree Kempegowda who belonged to Vijayanagara dynasty defeated the gangas and built a mud fort in 1537 which still stands in Bengaluru.
As Kempegowda was very strong Raja Achutya Devaraya was scared of his potential and allowed him to build only a mud fort. The fort that you see today was later built with stones and clad with metals by Tipu Sultan and then fortified by British. He had built 4 watch towers on the borders of Bengaluru. Lalbaugh kempamudi lake Ulsoor Lake and mekhri Circle. Kempegowda is rightly called as the founder of Bengaluru he called Bengaluru gadubhoomi or the land of heroes. He had built 2 lakes kempapoora lake which is now converted into a bus stand and karanjikare which is now the kanteveera stadium. He then divided Bengaluru into pethes which were called markets Chikapethe which ran east to west and Doddapethe which ran north to south. Finally in the year 1689 Mughals who had conquered Bengaluru had no interest left and sold Bengaluru to Woodyars for 3 Lakhs. Then in 1759 Hyderali was given Bengaluru as a jaghir and named as a jaghirdar. British tried to conquer Bengaluru three times which was foiled by Hyderali and Tipu Sultan. Finally British conquered Bengaluru fort in 1791. And then after few years Bengaluru and Mysore throne was handed over to the Woodyers after singing a secret pact with the British. The first city centre of Bangalore was in Basavanagudi in 1537 when Kempegowda built the bull temple and people started moving in and building their houses. Later there were total four city centres that emerged in Bangalore around 1920. Basavanagudi Kalasipalyam Malleswaram Cantonment There were two major crisis which hit Bengaluru - water crisis in early 1800s and plague in 1898. As a result of this crisis the woodeyars combined with British undertook many developmental activities they built the water system in Bengaluru which the people use till date.
They gave importance to sanitation health and built the Victoria hospital. Because of the efforts of the Mysore Woodeyar and Sir Vishveshwaraya Bangalore became the first city in Asia to get electricity by implementing the Shivanasamudra project under the leadership of K Sheshadri Iyer. Later in early 1900s the Woodeyars built lot of public buildings hospitals parks and beautified the city. Due to the beautiful climate of Bengaluru lot of elite people moved in and settled in Bengaluru including many missionaries Europeans Anglo Indians and royal elite Indians. Due to this Bengaluru came to be known as Pensioners paradise and elite people from all over India started migrating.