Kurugodu is a town in the southern state of

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

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 ...

.Village code= 913400 Kurugodu, Bellary, Karnataka It is headquarters of Kurugodu

taluk A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative ...

in Bellary district of Karnataka. The Sri Dodda Basaveshwara Temple (Big Basava) is located here. Every year Ratha Mahothsava of the Swamy Dodda Basaveshwara held on holy Poornima.

Name

The name ''Kuṟugōḍu'' is presumably derived from the

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

words
kuṟu
' and
kōḍu
', giving it a meaning "the hill with a small or low top". The name was presumably given in reference to one of the various hills on the north and west sides of the village. The spelling ''Kuṟugōḍu'' is attested in several medieval records (see below).

History

In the 1100s, Kurugodu was the site of a prominent

hillfort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

(''durga''). It is mentioned in lists of fortresses captured by the

Hoysala The Hoysala Kingdom was a kingdom originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka, India, Karnataka, parts of Tamilnadu and South-Western Telangana between the 11th and the 14th centuries Common Era, CE. The c ...

kings Vishnuvardhana and Viraballala II, as well as two separate inscriptions from Kurugodu itself, one on each side of the same stone slab. Inscription A, which unusually starts in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

before switching into

Prakrit Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...

and then into Kannada, records four different donations to a temple of Shiva, two of which are dated: one to 6 December 1173 and the other to 24 October 1181. The inscription itself is undated, but according to Lionel Barnett, it was probably made on or shortly after the 1181 date. Inscription B is incomplete and undated, but is dated to the reign of the same ruler as Inscription A: Rachamalla II of the Sinda dynasty. It describes the construction of a temple to Shiva at Kurugodu, and its incomplete part was probably intended to record a donation made to that temple. The inscriptions identify Kurugodu as part of the contemporary district of Ballakunde (which another inscription identifies as a 300-district within the larger region of Sindavāḍi).

Demographics

India

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, Kurugodu had a population of 17,379 with 8,815 males and 8,564 females.

Geography

* Bellary * Districts of Karnataka

References

External links

* http://Bellary.nic.in/ Cities and towns in Ballari district Taluks in Ballari district {{Bellary-geo-stub