Nayaks of Gingee

The fortress

Gingee's defences enclose three granite hills — Krishnagiri, Rajagiri and Chandrayandurg — linked by walls across the valleys between them, with the citadel on a sheer rock reached by a single bridged cleft. The Nayaks, Vijayanagara appointees from 1509, built most of what survives.

The fort changed hands repeatedly after them: Bijapur took it in 1649, the Marathas under Shivaji in 1677, the Mughals after an eight-year siege ending in 1698, and the French and then the British in the eighteenth century. Shivaji is reported to have called it the most impregnable fortress in India, and its record of long sieges supports him.

The dynasty

The Gingee Nayaks were the weakest of the three Tamil Nayak states and spent most of their existence at war with Thanjavur and Madurai. They fell to Bijapur in 1649, the first of the three to go.

Their period is nonetheless significant for the Tamil country's architecture: the fortification techniques developed at Gingee, Vellore and the other Nayak strongholds represent a distinct tradition of military building that has been much less studied than the temples of the same patrons.