The Gooty Fort, also known as Ravadurg and Gutti Kota, is a ruined fort located on a hill in the Gooty town of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The town of Gooty (originally, "Gutti") is located in the Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh. It is one of the centrally protected monuments of national importance.

History

Eight inscriptions have been found on the rocks close to the Narasimha temple located within the fort premises. These inscriptions are seriously damaged, but appear to be from the reign of the

Western Chalukya The Western Chalukya Empire ( ) ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannada dynasty is sometimes called the ''Kalyani Chalukya'' after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan i ...

king

Vikramaditya VI Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076 – 1126 CE) became the Western Chalukya King after deposing his elder brother Someshvara II, a political move he made by gaining the support of Chalukya vassals during the Chola invasion of Chalukya territory.Sen ...

(r. c. 1076-1126 CE). The earliest of the existing fortifications and other structures can be dated to the late Chalukya period. The fort later came under the control of the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

. During the reign of Venkata II (r. c. 1584-1614), the Vijayanagara lost the fort to the

Qutb Shahi dynasty The Sultanate of Golconda (; ) was an early modern kingdom in southern India, ruled by the Persianate, Shia Islamic Qutb Shahi dynasty of Turkoman origin. After the decline of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Sultanate of Golconda was established ...

. The

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

appear to have controlled the fort after their conquest of the Qutb Shahi capital

Golconda Golconda is a fortified citadel and ruined city located on the western outskirts of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparudra in the 11th century out of mud walls. It was ceded to the Bahmani ...

. Around 1746 CE, the

Maratha The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...

general Raja Murarirao Ghorpade captured the fort, and made it his permanent residence eight years later. He repaired the fort, and commissioned the

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

ornamentation of the small gateways. In 1775 CE, the

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

ruler

Hyder Ali Hyder Ali (''Haidar'alī''; ; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's ...

attacked and besieged the fort. After two months, Murari Rao was forced to surrender, as he ran out of water supplies. The fort later came under the control of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. Its administrator

Thomas Munro Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (27 May 17616 July 1827) was a Scottish soldier and British colonial administrator. He served as an East India Company Army officer and statesman, in addition to also being the governor of Mad ...

was buried at the cemetery located at the foothill.

Architecture

The fort is located on a group of hills that rise up to 680 m above the sea level. The hills are connected by lower spurs. The citadel of the fort is located on the westernmost hill. It has only one entrance known as "Mar Gooty." The summit of the citadel has two buildings, apparently a granary and a

gunpowder magazine A gunpowder magazine is a magazine (building) designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety. Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications re ...

. The ruined

Narasimha Narasimha (, , or , ), is the fourth avatara of the Hindu god Vishnu in the Satya Yuga. He incarnated as a part-lion, part-man and killed Hiranyakashipu, ended religious persecution and calamity on earth, and restored dharma. Narasimha has th ...

temple is located near the summit. On a 300 m high cliff, there is a small pavilion called "

Murari Rao Murari Rao (Murari Rao Ghorpade, ; 1699 – 8th May 1779) was a Maratha general and statesman who held Gooty and the surrounding territories, which extended eastward to Madras and Pondicherry. From 1741 to 1743, he administered the fort of Ti ...

's seat", which provides a panoramic view of the town below. It is said that the

general Murarirao Ghorpade used to play chess and swing here. The lower fortifications comprise a series of ramparts, which are connected by gateways and flanked by

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

s. Numerous reservoirs excavated on the rock clefts were used to trap the seasonal rainwater. 108 wells were also dug within the fort walls. There are several ruined buildings within the fort, including granaries, storerooms, and magazines. Some of these were used as prisons by the

administrator

References

5. ^''"''https://30stades.com/travel/gooty-fort-complex-with-15-forts-and-108-ponds-rainwater-harvesting-andhra-pr adesh-8441057
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