Karla (Karkala): the town of black stone

Karla (Karkala) is the town of the 42-foot Bahubali statue, cut from a single block of granite ¹. It stands in Udupi district, at the foot of the Western Ghats ^{2 3}. It lies on the roads to Sringeri, Kalasa and Horanadu ². The town is also known for its Jain basadis, its temples and the church at Attur ^{2 3}.

The name

Black granite is plentiful here, and is widely used in the town’s buildings ². The usual explanation of the name joins kari, black, and kallu, stone ^{2 3}. A place in the town is still called Kariya Kall (ಕರಿಯಕಲ್ಲ್), black rock ². Over time karikallu (ಕರಿಕಲ್ಲು) became Karla (ಕಾರ್ಲ) in Tulu and Karkala in Kannada ³. Karkala has been the official name since British times, and Tulu speakers still say Karla ².

There are other explanations. Some studies take the first name to be kari kola, elephant lake, after the tank now called Anekere, which also means elephant lake ². A writer on Tulu place names gives Karyodi as the town’s old name, from kariya, black, and odi, a settlement ⁴. He explains the Tulu name Karla as kār plus la, dark rocks beside water, and mentions the Ramasamudra lake ⁴.

The town goes back to the early tenth century ². While Jain kings ruled it, it was called Pandya Nagari ^{2 3}.

The Bhairarasa kings

The Alupas ruled the area first ². The Santaras held it under them, as their feudatories ^{2 5}. The two families married into each other ^{6 5}. The Santara line is said to have begun at Humcha ⁶. By the twelfth century it had split into two branches, one at Kalasa and one at Hosagunda ⁶.

The accounts of the seats differ. One says the two branches later moved their seats down to Keravashe (Keravase) and to Karla ⁶. The other says Kalasa stayed the seat above the Ghats, while the lands below were ruled first from Keravashe and then from Karla ⁵. Both call the kingdom Kalasa-Karkala, after a seat above the Ghats and one below ^{6 5}. Its kings at Karla were called the Bhairarasas ⁵. They accepted the Vijayanagara kings as overlords, but ran their own affairs ⁵.

Veera Bhairarasa (1390–1420) was the first well-known king of the Karla line ⁵. He ruled from Keravashe, and built basadis, Jain temples, at Barkur and Hiriyangadi ⁵. He had two sons, Ramanatha and Veera Pandya ². Ramanatha died young, and the Ramasamudra lake was made in his memory ².

His son Veera Pandya set up the Bahubali statue in 1432 ^{1 5}. For this he took the title Abhinava Chamundaraya ⁵. On 29 February 1436 he set the Brahma Stambha, a pillar, in front of the statue ⁵.

The next king took the title Abhinava Pandya ^{5 2}. He was Veera Pandya’s nephew, Veera Pandya IV, and ruled from 1455 to 1475 ⁵. He raised the manastambha, a tall carved pillar, before the Neminatha Basadi at Hiriyangadi ^{5 2}. The pillar went up in 1457 ². Its height is given as 57 feet in one account and 54 feet in another ^{5 2}.

A later king, Pandya VI, signed a defence treaty with the Chowtas ⁵. He built the basadi in the middle of the Anekere tank ^{5 2}. It is dated to 1545 ². Immadi Bhairava, Bhairava II, built the Chaturmukha Basadi in 1586 ⁷.

The accounts also differ on the end. One says the dynasty ended in 1763, under Hyder Ali ⁵. Another says the Santaras faded after attacks by the Keladi Nayakas and then by Hyder Ali ⁶. A third says Tipu Sultan took the region after the Pandyas, and British rule followed ².

The Bahubali statue

The statue of Bahubali is 42 feet tall, cut from a single block of granite ¹. It is also called Gommateshwara ¹. It stands on a rocky hill called Gommata Betta ¹. An inscription says Veera Pandya had it made, at the prompting of his Jain teacher Lalitakirti ¹. Worked out from the same inscription, the consecration fell on Wednesday, 13 February 1432 ¹. Lalitakirti was a title, passed down among the Jain teachers who guided the kings of Karla ¹. The head of the Jain matha at Karla carries the name today ⁸.

People tell a story about the sculptor, Kalkuda ¹. They say the king cut off his left arm and right leg, so that he could never carve such work for another ruler ¹. The inscription names the king and his teacher, and does not name Kalkuda ¹.

Once every twelve years the statue is anointed ⁸. This is the Mahamastakabhisheka, the great head-anointing ⁸. The statue is bathed with milk, sugarcane juice and saffron paste, and sprinkled with sandalwood, turmeric and vermilion ¹. The ceremony was held in 2002, and again from 21 to 31 January 2015 ^{1 8}. The next is set for 18 to 28 February 2027 ⁸.

The Chaturmukha Basadi

The Chaturmukha Basadi (ಚತುರ್ಮುಖ ಬಸದಿ), the four-faced basadi, stands on Chikkabetta, a small rocky hill facing the Bahubali statue ^{7 2}. Immadi Bhairava built it in 1586 ^{7 9}. A long inscription of that year, on a black granite slab inside, records its building and the land given for its worship ⁷. The inscription calls it Tribhuvanatilaka Jina Chaityalaya ⁷.

The building is a square hall with a doorway on each of its four sides ^{7 9}. Its roof is flat, made of huge granite slabs ⁷. Forty-eight pillars stand inside and sixty more outside ⁹. Life-size images of three Tirthankaras, the Jain teachers Aranatha, Mallinatha and Munisuvrata, stand on each side ^{7 2}.

The four-faced plan is used at another basadi too ¹⁰. The Kere Basadi at Varanga, about 26 kilometres from Karla, is a twelfth-century temple in the middle of a lake ¹⁰. It has four entrances, and people reach it by boat ¹⁰.

Padutirupathi and the town’s temples

The Sri Venkataramana temple is known as Padutirupathi ¹¹. Padu means west: it is the Tirupati of the west ¹¹. The Gaud Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) families of Karla built it ¹¹. Their account says the families fled Goa after the Portuguese took it, to escape ill-treatment there ¹¹. They settled here between 1530 and 1550 ¹¹. The Jain king Immadi Bhairava gave them land for the temple in 1550, and black stone to build with ¹¹. The account gives 25 April 1537 as the day the image was installed ¹¹. It also says the exact date is not known ¹¹. The temple was renovated in 1699–1700, and again in 2017 ¹¹. Its festivals include the Rathotsava, the car festival, and the Laksha Deepotsava, the festival of lamps ¹¹.

The town has other temples, among them the Ananthapadmanabha temple at Ananthashayana ^{2 3}. The Mahamaya Mukhyaprana and Adi Shakti Veerabhadra temples also date from the time of the Jain kings ².

Attur and the St Lawrence feast

The St Lawrence shrine stands at Attur, on the edge of the town, about four kilometres out ^{12 13}. It is a Roman Catholic church, founded in 1759 ^{12 13 3}. The parish’s list of priests begins in that year ¹². One Wikipedia account, which cites no source for it, says the church was built in 1845 ². The church was consecrated on 22 January 1901 ¹². People hold it to be a place of miracles ¹². Pope Francis made it a minor basilica on 26 April 2016 ¹².

Its feast falls in January, and is known locally as the Attur Jatre ¹². Thousands come for it, and people of every faith come to the shrine ^{13 2}. Tulu Wikipedia lists a Bethanya place of worship, with the year 1871, among the town’s places of worship ³.

The people and the year

Tulu is the home language of the town, and Kannada is the official language ². Konkani and Dakhni are also widely spoken ². In the 2011 Census, Tulu was the first language of about a third of Udupi district ¹⁴.

Many communities make up the town. Billava, Bunt, Devadiga, Ganiga, Mogaveera, Rama Kshatriya and Sapaliga families live here ². Brahmin families include Chitpavan, Gaud Saraswat, Rajapur Saraswat, Shivalli, Sthanika and Vishwakarma Brahmins ². Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian families live here, and the town has its churches ². Jain families have the town’s eighteen basadis and its Jain matha ^{5 2 8}. Muslim families live here, and the town has its mosques ². They include the Deobandi Hanafi community, and the town’s Dakhni Muslims speak Urdu as their mother tongue ².

Bhuta Kola, the night worship of the daivas, and Nagaradhane, the worship of the snake, are kept here as across the coast ². So is Yakshagana ². The Attur feast comes in January ¹². So does the Kambala at Miyar, about seven kilometres from the town ¹⁵. It is a buffalo race on a muddy track, one of the best known in Udupi district ¹⁵. Its stadium, with a twin track, was built in 1979 under Mijaraguttu Ananda Alva ¹⁵. The Bahubali statue is anointed once every twelve years ⁸.

What to see

In the town, climb to the Bahubali statue on Gommata Betta, and visit the Chaturmukha Basadi on the hill facing it ^{1 7}. Padutirupathi, the Ananthapadmanabha temple, and the Anekere and Ramasamudra lakes are all in the town ^{11 2}. The St Lawrence basilica is at Attur, on the town’s edge ¹². Further out, the Kere Basadi at Varanga stands in the middle of its lake ¹⁰.

Terms used on this page

• basadi: a Jain temple
• kere: a tank or lake

Related

• Bedra (Moodabidri): the Jaina Kashi of the south
• Udupi: the matha, the coast and the university town

Sources

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Last reviewed by tulunadu.org on 2 November 2026.