The hill state
The Keladi family began as Vijayanagara feudatories in the Western Ghats of Karnataka and became independent after 1565, moving their capital from Keladi to Ikkeri and finally to Bednur. Their territory covered the wet hill country and the pepper coast, and their wealth came from that trade — they dealt with the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English in turn, and fought all three.
Shivappa Nayaka, ruling in the mid-seventeenth century, carried out a land survey and revenue settlement of such quality that it was known as the Shivappa Nayaka śiṣṭu and remained in use under Hyder Ali, Tipu and the British. Land-revenue administration is rarely the thing a dynasty is remembered for, and in this case it should be.
Rani Chennamma
Keladi Chennamma ruled from 1671 and is remembered for sheltering Rajaram, Shivaji's younger son, when he fled the Mughal pursuit after the fall of Raigad in 1689 — and then withstanding the Mughal expedition sent to demand his surrender. The episode connects her small hill state to the central crisis of Deccan politics.
Hyder Ali took Bednur in 1763 and its treasury, which financed much of his subsequent expansion, and the dynasty ended.
Further reading
- Champakalakshmi, R. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization: South India. Oxford University Press, 1996
- Fritz, John M. Hampi Vijayanagara. Jaico, 2003
- Stein, Burton. Vijayanagara. Cambridge University Press, 1989
- Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.