Kundapura and the northern coast

Kundapura has its own form of Kannada, called Kundagannada ¹. The place is a town and taluk in the north of Udupi district ². It stands on the Panchagangavalli, where five rivers reach the sea ^{2 3}.

Under the British the town was called Coondapoor. It was part of South Canara in the Madras Presidency ².

Speech

Kundagannada (ಕುಂದಗನ್ನಡ) is also called Kundapra bhashi or Kundapura Kannada. Wikipedia calls it a dialect of Kannada ¹. The dialect has the core of Kannada and some Tulu influence in local words ¹. A Daijiworld article says it keeps some features of Halegannada, the old form of Kannada ⁴.

Where it is spoken is given in two ways. Wikipedia names four taluks: Kundapura, Byndoor, Brahmavar and Hebri ¹. Daijiworld says three taluks, from Brahmavar to Shirur ⁴.

The speakers have made the dialect a matter of pride. Vishwa Kundapura Kannada Day began in 2019 ⁴. It falls on Ashadha Amavasye, which people here call Ati Amase or Karkati Amase ⁴. That day marks the end of paddy planting and the peak of the monsoon ⁴. The first Kundapura Kannada dictionary came out in 2021 ⁴. A study centre for the dialect was set up at Mangalore University ⁴.

Tulu is a small part of the town’s speech. In the 2011 Census the town’s mother tongues were Kannada (63.4 per cent), Konkani (22.9), Urdu (4.3), Malayalam (1.7) and Tulu (1.2) ². For Udupi district as a whole, about 43 per cent gave Kannada as their first language and about 31 per cent gave Tulu ⁵.

The name

The sources give two explanations of the name, and neither says which is right.

Wikipedia says the name comes from the Kundeshwara temple. It says King Kundavarma of the Alupa dynasty built the temple, in the tenth or eleventh century ². Tulu Wikipedia says there is a claim that the town took its name from the temple King Kundavarma built ⁶. It also says Kunda was the name of this area, and that a king once had pura added to the names of growing villages. So Kunda became Kundapura, people say ⁶.

The second explanation is about a flower. Wikipedia says that in Kundagannada kunda also means jasmine ². It says most people here grew jasmine, and the town came to be called the land of jasmine ². Tulu Wikipedia also says kunda means jasmine. It says the town was once known for growing jasmine, and that some argue the name came from this ⁶.

Both articles give the local form Kundapra beside the official name Kundapura ^{2 6}.

Who lives here and where they pray

In the town, Konkani is the mother tongue of almost one person in four ².

At Basrur most people speak Kundagannada ⁷. Roman Catholic Christians and Gaud Saraswat Brahmins (GSB) use Konkani there ⁷. The Muslim communities use Beary, Urdu and Nawayathi ⁷. Quite a few people of the Basel Mission, a Christian missionary society, speak Tulu ⁷.

Tulu Wikipedia lists twenty places of worship in Kundapura ⁶. They include a Bobbarya shrine and the temples of Rakteshwari, Chikkamma and Kodi Chakramma ⁶. They also include the Kundeshwara, Venkataramana and Kote Anjaneya temples and the Raghavendra Matha ⁶. The list has the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, the CSI Protestant Church and the Jumma Masjid ⁶.

The old ports

Basrur

Basrur is a village in Kundapura taluk, on the Varahi river ⁷. The Tulu Research & Studies blog puts it on the south bank, about four kilometres east of Kundapura ⁸.

For much of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, Basrur was the rice port of this coast ⁷. The blog says the Portuguese preferred it in the seventeenth century. They sent rice, and later pepper, from here to Europe ⁸. Wikipedia says the town had streets for traders, artisans, dancers and weavers ⁷.

Basrur has many names in old accounts. They include Barcelor, Bares and Abu-Sarur ⁷. The traveller Ibn Battuta wrote of Abu-Sarur as a small place on a large inlet, with many coconut palms ⁷. Wikipedia says the British map-maker James Rennell took the Bares on Ptolemy’s map to be Basrur ⁷. The blog says the same of Ptolemy’s port, and says Basrur was rebuilt in the twelfth century ⁸.

Basrur was also called Vasupura ⁷. The blog says the name Vasupura appears in the Keladi Nripa Vijaya, written in the eighteenth century. It says one historian took Vasupura to be a Sanskrit form of Basarur ⁸. It lists other explanations of the name, among them a king Vasu and the basuri tree. It says no record shows a king Vasu ⁸.

The Tulu Siri paddana, a song about a woman called Siri, has a part in Basarur. The blog says Siri marries Kanthu Poonja of Basarur, and later leaves Basarur with her child ⁸.

The Nakhareshwara temple is the best known old temple. The blog says its inscriptions of 1154 and 1176 name the Alupa king Kavi Alupendra ⁸. Wikipedia says a twelfth-century inscription is the first to mention it. It says the Nakhara merchant guild built the temple that is now called Mahalingeshwara ⁷. Wikipedia also names the Mahalasa Narayani temple as a spiritual centre for the GSB community ⁷.

The Portuguese built a fort called Santa Luzia and a church at Basrur near the end of the sixteenth century ⁷. The blog says churches stood here as early as 1574. It says that in 1783 Tipu Sultan destroyed several of them, thinking Christians would help the British ⁸. By Hyder Ali’s time the river had silted up and the port had lost its place ⁸.

On the Maratha raid by Shivaji on the Portuguese at Basrur, the two sources give different days. Wikipedia says 13 February 1665. The blog says 8 February 1665 ^{7 8}.

Gangolli

Gangolli is a town at the mouth of the Panchagangavalli, on a peninsula. The river is on its east and the sea on its west ⁹. The five rivers are the Souparnika, Varahi, Kedaka, Chakra and Kubja ^{3 9}.

Tulu Wikipedia says the Alupas ruled Gangolli. It says that before the sixteenth century the area was an important centre for Jains and for the Natha tradition ¹⁰. Wikipedia says Gangolli passed to the Keladi Nayakas after the fall of Vijayanagara in 1565 ⁹. Under Vijayanagara, ships bound for Basrur stopped here. Horses and dates came in exchange for rice, pepper and copper vessels ⁹.

Wikipedia says that around 1560 many Goan families moved to Gangolli and further south because of the Goa Inquisition ⁹. The families bought land from residents and from the Keladi king Sadashiva Nayaka, and cleared forest to settle ⁹. The best known of the institutions they set up was the Venkataramana temple ⁹. People call it the Malyar Matha of the GSB ⁹. Wikipedia also says people believe the first church in South Canara came up at the Gangolli port around 1560 ⁹. This was a prayer hall, as there was no priest there then ⁹.

The Portuguese took Gangolli in 1629. They built a fort of St Michael at the river mouth and a church of the Immaculate Conception. The Gangolli article says the church was destroyed when the Portuguese left Gangolli in 1757, and was rebuilt and rededicated in May 2017 ⁹. Wikipedia’s Kundapur article says the Portuguese built a fort at Kundapura in 1570 ².

Shivappa Nayaka of Keladi fought the Portuguese. By 1652 his army had taken the Portuguese fort at Kundapur and destroyed their ships at Gangolli. The Kundapura article says the Portuguese had left the region by 1654 ². The Gangolli article says he took Gangolli back by 1654 ⁹.

By 1680 Gangolli had lost trade to Mangaluru ⁹. In 1697, a fleet from Muscat raided the coast from Gangolli and Kundapur to Basrur. Wikipedia says this happened after the Arabs were refused leave to open a factory ⁹. Fishing is a main activity at Gangolli today. Wikipedia says it grew into a major fishing centre from the 1980s, with mechanised boats ⁹.

Kollur

Kollur is a temple town in Byndoor taluk, which was cut out of Kundapura taluk in 2018 ^{11 5}. It is about 40 kilometres from Kundapura ¹². Tulu Wikipedia says it lies at the foot of the Western Ghats ¹³.

The Mookambika temple is dedicated to the mother goddess. Its main image is a self-formed linga with a golden line across it ¹¹. The main festivals are Rathotsava in Phalguna and Navaratri in Ashwin ¹¹. Wikipedia says most pilgrims come from Kerala, and that Malayalis of every religion and caste visit the temple ¹¹. Kundapura railway station is used by pilgrims from Kerala who visit Kollur ².

Wikipedia tells the story of how the goddess got her name ¹¹. A sage called Kola Maharishi was doing penance here, and a demon troubled him ¹¹. The goddess killed the demon, Mookasura, and from then on people here knew her as Mookambika ¹¹. Wikipedia says Adi Shankara set up the image of the goddess ¹¹.

Tulu Wikipedia says people also call the place Kollapura ¹³. It says people hold that the name came from the goddess killing the demon Mookasura here ¹³.

Kodachadri is the hill behind the temple. It is 1,343 metres high and lies in Shivamogga district ¹⁴. Wikipedia says Adi Shankara is said to have meditated there ¹⁴.

The Souparnika river flows past the temple. Devotees treat it as sacred ¹². People believe it is named for Garuda, also called Suparna, who did penance on its bank ^{12 15}.

The river mouth and the coast

At Maravanthe, in Byndoor taluk, the highway runs on a narrow strip between the sea and the Souparnika ^{16 17}. The river almost touches the sea here. It turns back, flows south and meets the sea at Gangolli ^{16 17}.

Local people say the Varaha temple on a boulder by the river keeps it from reaching the sea at this point. There is an island of about 100 acres in the river, called Kuru Kudru. Farmers live on it ¹⁷. A kudru (kuduru) is an island in a river ⁸.

Where the name Maravanthe comes from is not well recorded. One view links it to the temple’s name. Another links it to mara, the Kannada word for tree, because the village once had dense forest ¹⁷. Fishing is the main work in the village ¹⁶.

Kodi is a village in Kundapura taluk, on the coast. It has a beach and a one-kilometre sea walk, where dolphins can be seen ¹⁸.

Temples of the taluk

Anegudde is a hillock at Kumbhashi, where the Vinayaka temple stands. It is one of the best known temples of Ganesha in Udupi district ¹⁹. Kumbhashi is one of the seven Mukti Sthalas of the coast, which belong to the Parashurama Kshetra ¹⁹.

Hattiangadi has the Siddhi Vinayaka temple on the bank of the Varahi. Wikipedia dates the temple to the seventh or eighth century, and says Hattiangadi was once a capital of the Alupas ²⁰. The blog says the Alupas ruled this area from their capital at Barkur ⁸.

Food

Chicken ghee roast is a dish of chicken coated in a thick masala fried in ghee. Mangalore Heritage says it started in Kundapur ²¹.

The taluk

Kundapura taluk has the Arabian Sea on the west and the Western Ghats on the east. Brahmavara taluk is on the south and Byndoor taluk on the north ². In February 2018 Byndoor was cut out of Kundapura taluk ⁵. The 2011 Census list, from before that change, gives the taluk two towns, Kundapura (30,444) and Koteshwar (10,229), and 98 villages ²².

The town is 38 kilometres from Udupi and 91 from Mangaluru. The Konkan Railway station is about four kilometres from the town ².

Terms used on this page

• kudru: a river island

Related

• Tulu Nadu: the land, its districts and its towns
• Udupi: the matha, the coast and the university town
• Kudla (Mangaluru): the junction of two rivers

Sources

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Last reviewed by tulunadu.org on 2 November 2026.