Puttur and Sullia: the inland taluks

In 1837 people of the hills of Puttur and Sullia rose in arms against the rule of the British East India Company ^{1 2}. Puttur and Sullia are two taluks of Dakshina Kannada, south-east of Kudla (Mangaluru), towards the Western Ghats and Kodagu ^{3 4}.

Puttur town is about 52 kilometres south-east of Kudla ^{3 5}. Sullia town is about 35 kilometres beyond Puttur, on the road to Madikeri ^{5 2}. Sullia taluk borders Kodagu, Kasaragod in Kerala, and Hassan district ⁴.

Rulers and taluks

Puttur was once a seat of the Banga chiefs, whose capital was Bangadi ^{2 5}. Later it came under the Kodagu kings ². The sources date the Puttur taluk differently. English Wikipedia’s article on Bantwal says part of Bantwal taluk became the new Puttur taluk in 1852 ⁶. The district gazetteer says Puttur was a smaller centre in Uppinangadi taluk until 1927, when it became the taluk headquarters ². Sullia was part of Puttur taluk until 1966, when it became a taluk of its own ². Kadaba is a new taluk ⁷. It began work on 1 January 2018 ⁸. It was made from nine villages of Puttur taluk and seven of Sullia ⁸. Kukke Subrahmanya, which was in Sullia taluk, is now in Kadaba taluk ^{9 10}.

The names

Tulu Wikipedia writes Puttur the same way as Kannada does ⁵. An inscription of 1431, at the Mahalingeshwara temple in the town, calls it Putturu ². The district gazetteer says the name means a new town, following Umanatha Shenoy ². The Tulu Research blog explains it the same way: put or pudu, new, and ur, a settlement ¹¹. The blog adds that many Tulu speakers today read the name as a village of flowers, from poo, a flower ¹¹. The blog takes the first as the older explanation, and the flowers one as later ¹¹. It also notes another explanation, from puttye, an anthill ¹¹.

Tulu Wikipedia says people also call Puttur Muttur, and tells a story for it ⁵. A big tank was dug to the west of the Mahalingeshwara temple, but no water came, however deep it went ⁵. The temple’s trustees spent a great deal of money and gave a feast for the people ⁵. When the people had eaten, the tank filled with water, and the rice left on their leaves turned to pearls, muttu ⁵. So the place was called Muttur, the town of pearls, and over time people came to say Puttur ⁵.

Tulu Wikipedia writes Sullia the same way as Kannada too ⁴. English Wikipedia also gives Sulya ¹², and the district gazetteer gives Soolya, Sooleya and Sooliya ². The Tulu Research blog explains the name as sul, a winding river or a whirlpool, and -ia, an ending for a place ¹³. In that explanation Sullia is the place beside a winding river ¹³.

Sullia was long called Amara Sullia ². Before it was a taluk it was a magane, a group of fourteen villages, known as Amara Sulya-nadu ². The Tulu Research blog suggests that Amara comes from an old word for land that a ruler granted to his officers ¹⁴. In return, they kept soldiers for him ¹⁴. The blog lists other possible meanings too ¹⁴. The district gazetteer records a story about Shivappa Nayaka of Keladi ². It is said that he gave some villages here to the Kodagu king Mudduraja. They were an Amrita-magane, given to provide milk and butter for his son ². The old Amara magane was later split into two villages, Amara Padnur in the west and Amara Mudnur in the east ¹⁴.

The rising of 1837

In 1837 people of these hills rose in arms against the rule of the British East India Company ^{1 2}. English Wikipedia calls it the Amara Sullia Rebellion ¹. It gives two more names for it, Kalyanappana Katakayi and Amara Sulya Raitha ¹. The district gazetteer tells it under the heading “Revolt of Kalyanaswamy” ². In its Sullia entry it calls it the Amara Sulya Rebellion of 1837 ².

The rising grew out of what happened in Kodagu. In 1834 the British removed the Kodagu king, Chikka Veerarajendra, and took Kodagu under their own rule ^{2 1}. Puttur and Amara Sullia, which had been under Kodagu, were moved into the Canara district ^{2 1}. After Tipu’s defeat the British had themselves given Amara Sullia, Panja and Bellare to the Kodagu king ². English Wikipedia’s article on the rising says they gave him Amara Sullia and Puttur in 1804 ¹. Under the Kodagu kings, people had paid their revenue in kind, as produce ^{2 1}. Now they had to pay it in cash, and to the British ^{2 1}. The gazetteer says this put farmers in the hands of money-lenders, who bought their crops cheap ². It also says many people stayed loyal to the Kodagu royal family ².

The sources name the leaders differently. The district gazetteer begins with a Jangama, a holy man, known as Swamy Aparampara ². He gathered people to end British rule in Kodagu, and was arrested and jailed at Kannanur ². Then Kalyanaswamy took the lead ². He was arrested in his turn, and hanged in 1835 as a warning to others ². In 1837 a man called Puttabasappa took the name of Swamy Aparampara and raised the revolt ². The gazetteer lists more than a dozen people who backed him ². Among them are Subedar Guddemane Appaiah, Kedambadi Ramaiah Gowda, the two Koojugodu Gowdas, Lakshmappa Bangarasa, Karanika Subbaiah, Sheik, Karthukudiya and Chettukudiya ². English Wikipedia’s article on the district tells it with Kalyanaswamy as the leader all through ¹⁵. It calls him a “pretender to the throne of Coorg”, that is, a man who claimed it ¹⁵. In that account he gathered supporters at Bellare, beat two companies of sepoys near Puttur, and marched on Kudla ¹⁵. He was hanged after the rising ¹⁵. The gazetteer has him hanged two years before it ².

The rising began at Bellare in the last week of March 1837 ². The rebels took the Company’s treasury at Bellare ¹. They marched by Puttur to Kudla ¹⁵. On 5 April they pulled down the British flag at Bavutagudda and raised their own ². Their strongholds ran from Bellare and Puttur to Kasaragod, Bantwal, Kumbla and Kudla ². The gazetteer prints two letters from the rebels’ side, sent that April ². One ordered people to come with their weapons, and threatened those who did not ². The other said their aim was to end violence, make peace and keep the people content ². English Wikipedia says they held Kudla for two weeks ¹⁵. Then British troops came from Thalassery, Dharwad, Belgaum and Mumbai, and the rising broke up ^{15 2}. Most of the leaders were caught ². After an inquiry in the Sadar Adalat, the court, some of them were hanged ². Others were jailed for life or banished, some of them to Singapore ^{2 15}.

What kind of rising it was is also told in more than one way. English Wikipedia says the Arebhashe people, the Kodavas and the people of Tulu Nadu organised it ¹. It calls it “basically a farmers’ rebellion” ¹. Its Sullia article says Gowdas, Bunts, Kudiyas, Adi Dravidas and people of other castes “fought for freedom” against the British ¹². They came from Amara Sullia, Madikeri, Bellare, Puttur and other places ¹². The district gazetteer counts it among the revolts against the British in Karnataka before 1857 ². It also quotes Mark Cubbon, the British commissioner in Mysore, writing on the inquiry into it ². He called it “a riot against the British Government” by “a large group of prominent people” ². Today a statue of Kedambadi Ramaiah Gowda stands at Bavutagudda in Kudla, and one of Guddemane Appaiah Gowda in Madikeri ¹. The Karnataka government has named Ubaradka Mittur, a village in Sullia taluk, a heritage village for its part in the freedom movement ¹.

Areca, cocoa and rubber

People here live by farming ^{5 4}. Around Puttur the crops are areca, paddy, coconut, cocoa and cashew ⁵. Around Sullia they are areca, rubber, cocoa, pepper, coconut and paddy, with some coffee and cardamom ⁴. In Kadaba taluk the Kumaradhara river waters the areca, rubber, pepper, cocoa, coconut and cashew gardens ⁸.

Puttur is the home of Campco, a co-operative set up by the governments of Karnataka and Kerala to give areca growers a steady market ². In 1986 it began a chocolate factory at Puttur, to help the cocoa crop ^{2 5}. The first co-operative society in the district, the Gramina Sahakara Sangha, was set up in Puttur in 1909 ². Puttur also has the Directorate of Cashew Research ^{15 5}.

Rubber planting grew in these hills after 1964 ². That year India and Sri Lanka made an agreement ². Under it, more than 13,000 hectares of forest in the Sullia and Puttur taluks were cleared for Tamil families returning from Sri Lanka ². Rubber estates grew on that land, and the Tamil families settled there ².

Uppinangady (Ubar)

Uppinangady is a town in Puttur taluk where the Netravati and the Kumaradhara rivers meet ^{16 17}. Its Tulu name is Ubar (ಉಬಾರ್, ubār) ^{16 18}. In the past, salt from Kudla and spices from the Ghats were traded here ². The district gazetteer says that is why the place was called Ubar ². It also records another opinion: salt from Kudla was sent on from here, so the place was called Ubar Uppinangadi, and later just Uppinangadi ². Tulu Wikipedia says the salt trade up the Ghats gave the town its Kannada name, Uppinangadi ¹⁸.

Uppinangady was once the headquarters of its own taluk, and the sources give different dates for the move to Puttur. Tulu Wikipedia says the headquarters moved in 1882 ¹⁸. English Wikipedia says the courts moved to Puttur after a great flood in 1923 ¹⁶. The district gazetteer says Uppinangadi was a taluk headquarters until 1927 ². The two rivers flood the town often, and the floods of 1923 and 1974 hit it hardest ^{2 16}.

When the rivers rise in the monsoon and meet, people from the villages around come to watch the sangama, the meeting of the waters ^{16 18}. The town’s temple is to Sahasralingeshwara, the lord of a thousand lingas ^{16 18}. Its story says that Bhima was chased here by a beast called the purusha mriga ^{16 18}. He dropped hairs one by one, and each became a linga ^{16 18}. In English Wikipedia they are Bhima’s own hairs ¹⁶. In Tulu Wikipedia they are hairs from the tail of Anjaneya (Hanuman), who gave them to him for protection ¹⁸. People come here to perform the rites for the dead ^{2 18}. Three makhe fairs are held here one after another ^{2 18}. The district gazetteer places them in the month of Kumbha ². Tulu Wikipedia places them in the Tulu month of ಮಾಯಿ (māyi) ¹⁸. Near the temple are the Malikuddinar mosque and the church of the Infant Jesus ¹⁸.

The languages

Tulu is the first language of most people in Puttur taluk ³. In the 2011 Census, about 56 per cent of people in Puttur taluk gave Tulu as their mother tongue ³. Malayalam came next with 21 per cent, then Kannada with 8 and Konkani with 4 ³. Beary is spoken there too, and the Havyaka Brahmins of Puttur speak Havigannada ³. In Sullia taluk Tulu was the mother tongue of about 41 per cent, Kannada of 19, Malayalam of 19 and Arebhashe of 13 ¹².

The Arebhashe Gowdas

The Arebhashe Gowdas are a community of these hills and of Kodagu, and Arebhashe (ಅರೆಭಾಷೆ) is their own speech ¹⁹. It is also called Aregannada and Gowda Kannada ¹⁹. It is spoken in the Sullia and Puttur taluks, in the Madikeri, Somwarpet and Kushalnagar taluks of Kodagu, and at Bandadka in Kasaragod ¹⁹. Other communities of the region use it too, to speak with one another ¹⁹.

Arebhashe is close to Kannada ¹⁹. English Wikipedia calls it “a dialect of Kannada” ¹⁹. The same article calls it a language, and says it differs from Kannada in its sounds and its words ¹⁹. It keeps some old Kannada forms that later Kannada lost, and it has words from Tulu and Malayalam ¹⁹. It is close to Kundagannada and Havigannada, and linguists find it very close to Badaga ¹⁹.

Arebhashe has its own songs, stories and plays ¹⁹. Shobhane songs are sung at weddings, and tell of Rama and Sita ¹⁹. Paddanas, sung stories of gods and of people of the past, are recited at the bhuta kola ¹⁹. There are riddles, proverbs and folktales ¹⁹. In the Tulu month of Suggi, the Arebhashe Gowdas of Sullia, Belthangady and Puttur dance the Siddavesha ¹⁹. It goes on from evening till morning, from house to house, and homes of every kind are visited ¹⁹. Yakshagana and talamaddale are performed in Arebhashe too ¹⁹. K. Kushalappa Gowda wrote its grammar, and an epic in it, Manasa Bharatha ¹⁹. In 2011 the Karnataka government set up an academy for Arebhashe and its culture, based in Madikeri ¹⁹. Kedambadi Ramaiah Gowda and Guddemane Appaiah Gowda, named in the rising of 1837, are counted among the Arebhashe people ¹⁹.

Kukke Subrahmanya

Kukke Subrahmanya is a temple town in Kadaba taluk, on the Kumaradhara river ^{9 10}. It lies between the Kumara Parvatha and Shesha Parvatha hills ². It is about 105 kilometres from Kudla ^{10 2}. The district gazetteer places it on the Darpana Tirtha, a stream that joins the Kumaradhara ². Here Kartikeya is worshipped as Subrahmanya, the lord of all serpents ^{9 10}. The story is that the serpent king Vasuki hid here from Garuda, and found shelter with Subrahmanya ^{9 2}. The district gazetteer says Subrahmanya is worshipped here in the form of a naga, a serpent, and that naga worship here is very old ².

People come to Kukke for its serpent rites ^{9 10}. Among them are Ashlesha Bali and Sarpa Samskara ¹⁰. People have them done to lift the sarpa dosha, a curse linked with serpents ^{9 10}. The temple’s great fair is in the month of Margashira, with the car festival on Champa Shashthi, and a smaller one on Kiru Shashthi ². Near the path to the river is the Biladwara, a cave where Vasuki is said to have prayed to Shiva ².

The town takes its name from Kukke village, where the temple stands ². Kukke is named in an inscription of the ninth century ². Within the temple there are Shiva lingas called the Kukke lingas, with a fair of their own at Makara Sankranti ². Kukke means a basket ²⁰. The Tulu Research blog explains Kukke as the name of an old people of Tulu Nadu, and takes them to have been basket-makers ²⁰. It says that in legend they set up and worshipped the first linga here ²⁰.

The year, and what to see

Puttur’s Mahalingeshwara temple stands in the middle of the town, with its sacred tank beside it ^{2 5}. An inscription of the twelfth century already mentions the tank ². The temple’s fair runs for ten days ². On the night before the car festival, the bhandara, the sacred things of the daiva Ullalti, is brought from Balnadu in a palanquin ². The car festival is held under her lead ². The fireworks of the festival, the bedi of Puttur, are known for the patterns they make in the sky ². The temple also has shrines to the daivas Pili-bhuta, Panjurli, Anganattaya and Rakteshwari, who guard the place ².

At Parladka, on the road to Panaje, is Balavana, the house of the writer Shivarama Karanth ^{5 2}. He lived there for forty years ². After he left in 1973 the government bought the house ². It now has a dance school, a museum of birds, a children’s library and a garden ². Near Irde village, 10 to 12 kilometres from Puttur, is Bendru Tirtha, a hot spring in the paddy fields ^{2 5}. In Tulu bendru (ಬೆಂದ್ರ್, bendr) means hot water ⁵.

Sullia’s Chennakeshava temple is about 500 years old, and its car festival is held every January ². In 1934 Gandhi spoke at Sullia, near the old gate, on his Harijan tour ². The Ballala chiefs once had their seat at Sullia ². Their old capital was at Bellare, where their ruined palace and basadis remain, with the remains of a later fort ². At Thodikana, about 10 kilometres from Sullia, near the Kodagu border, is the old Mallikarjuna temple ². People there believe that the land Parashurama made ends at Thodikana ². The Devaragundi falls are about two kilometres from the temple ². From Kadaba, trekkers climb the Kumara Parvatha peak ⁸.

Terms used on this page

• arebhashe: the speech of the Arebhashe Gowdas
• ashlesha bali: the serpent rite held on the day of the Ashlesha star
• daiva: the deity of a place, a family or a village
• uru: settlement, village, town

Related

• Tulu Nadu: the land, its districts and its towns
• Kudla (Mangaluru): the junction of two rivers
• Bantwal and Belthangady: the Netravati towns

Sources

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Last reviewed by tulunadu.org on 2 November 2026.