50 Fun Facts About Karnataka

Which folk meaning of Bengaluru's name comes from a tale of a 12th-century king lost while hunting?

Town of boiled beans is the popular reading of 'Benda-Kaal-uru', said to honour an old woman who fed that king, yet an 890 CE inscription at Begur already names Bengaluru.

Which monument at the Vijayanagara ruins appears on India's ₹50 banknote?

Stone Chariot is not a chariot at all but a shrine built like one, and it once held an image of Garuda.

Which son of Hyder Ali was killed defending Srirangapatna against the British in 1799?

Tipu Sultan owned a near life-size mechanical tiger mauling a European man, which the British seized in 1799 and carried off to London.

Which crop is said to have begun in India with seven seeds a Sufi saint smuggled into Karnataka's hills?

Coffee, in the legend, came from Baba Budan, who hid the seven beans in his beard on the way home from Yemen, and those hills are now called Baba Budangiri.

Which Vijayapura tomb of Mohammad Adil Shah has a whispering gallery where the faintest sound carries across its dome?

Gol Gumbaz was still unfinished when Mohammad Adil Shah died, and after his death work on its decoration stopped.

Which Kannada screen legend was abducted from his Gajanur farmhouse by the bandit Veerappan in 2000, for 108 days?

Rajkumar's abduction deepened tension between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where Gajanur lies, until Veerappan freed him that November.

Which Karnataka mining town, electrified by cable in 1902, saw its mines shut in 2001?

Kolar Gold Fields closed after years of losses, and its 1970s mines became the setting of KGF: Chapter 1, the first Kannada film to gross ₹200 crore.

Which Bengaluru-born shuttler became the first Indian to win the All England men's singles title, in 1980?

Prakash Padukone, father of actor Deepika Padukone, later co-founded Olympic Gold Quest with Geet Sethi to support India's Olympic athletes.

Which Bengaluru online retailer, begun in 2007 by two ex-Amazon staff selling books, sold control to Walmart in 2018?

Flipkart's founders Sachin and Binny Bansal were IIT Delhi alumni, and Walmart beat Amazon itself in the bidding war for control of the company.

Which ruined city on the Tungabhadra was the Vijayanagara capital until 1565?

Hampi's temples and palaces won travellers' admiration, but after the 1565 defeat a coalition of sultanates pillaged the city for six months and left it abandoned.

Which dynasty built the star-plan soapstone temples at Belur, Halebidu and Somanathapura, listed by UNESCO in 2023?

The Hoysala temples were raised in the 12th and 13th centuries from chloritic schist, a soft rock that let carvers work lace-like detail into every surface.

Which goddess is said to have slain the demon Mahishasura on the day Mysuru's Dasara celebrates?

Chamundeshwari's Dasara outlived the monarchy that staged it: the State carries on its royal procession as the Nada Habba, the state festival.

Which Jain figure's 57-foot monolith at Shravanabelagola is anointed in a Mahamastakabhisheka held every twelve years?

Bahubali, in Jain tradition, beat his brother Bharata in a contest for their father's empire, then renounced the world instead of ruling.

Which Karnataka bowler took all ten Pakistani wickets in a Test innings at Delhi in 1999, as Jim Laker once had?

Anil Kumble later bowled in Antigua in 2002 with his fractured jaw bandaged, and he took the wicket of Brian Lara.

Which Bengaluru-raised batsman lifted the T20 World Cup in 2024 on his last day as India's head coach?

Rahul Dravid, nicknamed The Wall, had already lost World Cup finals as a player in 2003 and as coach in 2023 before that win.

Which IT company, started in Pune in 1981 by seven engineers with $250 of capital, is now headquartered in Bengaluru?

Infosys's seed money came from Sudha Murty, who gave N. R. Narayana Murthy her rainy-day savings.

Which Bengaluru-based agency made India the first nation to land a craft near the Moon's south pole in 2023?

ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 touched down four years after Chandrayaan-2's lander crashed, and India declared 23 August, the landing day, National Space Day.

Which physicist, founder of his own Bengaluru research institute in 1948, won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics?

C. V. Raman argued that the sea looks blue because water itself scatters light, not simply because it reflects the sky, as most people assumed.

Which Karnataka temple town, site of Madhvacharya's 13th-century Krishna shrine, names a style of vegetarian restaurant?

Udupi's Krishna idol is said to have turned west for the devoted poet Kanakadasa, and pilgrims still view it through a window named Kanakana Kindi.

Which queen of Kittur took up arms against the British East India Company decades before the 1857 uprising?

Rani Chennamma fought after the Company refused to accept her adopted son as heir, and her samadhi now stands at Bailhongal.

Which Hassan-born Karnataka chief minister went from that post in 1996 to eleven months as India's Prime Minister?

H. D. Deve Gowda headed a United Front coalition from June 1996 to April 1997, and in 1999 he split the Janata Dal to lead its Secular wing.

Which wood gives the Kannada film industry of Gandhi Nagar, Bengaluru its nickname?

Sandalwood's first talkie, Sati Sulochana, was shot not in Karnataka but at Chhatrapati Studio in Kolhapur, and released in 1934.

Which Bengaluru legislature, finished in 1956, was redesigned after visiting Russians asked if the city had no architecture of its own?

Vidhana Soudha answered with a granite Neo-Dravidian design, and the chief minister behind it called the result a 'people's palace'.

Which Bengaluru garden, commissioned by Hyder Ali in 1760, has a Glass House modelled on London's Crystal Palace?

Lalbagh was completed by Hyder Ali's son, who stocked it with trees and plants brought from as far as Persia and Afghanistan.

Which Rashtrakavi wrote 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate', the poem Karnataka adopted as its state anthem?

Kuvempu is the pen name of Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, who as vice-chancellor of Mysore University started teaching in Kannada.

Under which chief minister did Mysore State officially take the name Karnataka?

Devaraj Urs's government gave up the name Mysore, inherited from the old princely state, after campaigners long pressed for Karnataka instead.

Which Karnataka district, birthplace of Field Marshal Cariappa and General Thimayya, is administered from Madikeri?

Kodagu came under direct British rule in 1834, when the East India Company annexed it from its last ruler, Chikka Virarajendra.

Which dusk-to-dawn dance-drama of coastal Karnataka, led by a singing bhagavata, stages the epics in towering headgear?

Yakshagana's dialogue is improvised on stage around the bhagavata's songs, so the same episode can play differently from one night to the next.

Which festival, kept in Karnataka on the first day of Chaitra, opens with bevu bella, neem mixed with jaggery?

Ugadi's bevu bella pairs bitter neem with sweet jaggery as a reminder that the new year will bring both sorrow and joy.

Which fibre does the Mysuru factory founded by the maharaja in 1912 weave into sarees with gold zari?

Silk sarees from that factory carry zari of 65 percent silver with a trace of gold, so each is stamped with a unique code and hologram against fakes.

Which blue-winged bird is the state bird of both Karnataka and Telangana?

Indian roller males tumble and roll over in flight during the breeding season, a display the whole roller family is known for.

Which river flows around the island town of Srirangapatna, near Mysuru?

The Kaveri dispute runs so deep that court orders to release its water to Tamil Nadu have set off riots in Bengaluru.

Which Vijayanagara emperor composed the Telugu epic poem Amuktamalyada?

Krishnadevaraya is believed to have written Amuktamalyada after a god appeared to him in a dream, and eight celebrated poets graced his court.

Which 1565 battle saw the allied Deccan sultanates rout the Vijayanagara Empire?

Talikota's victors plundered the Vijayanagara capital unopposed, and the empire never recovered its power.

Which Bagalkot district town, capital of the early Chalukyas, is famed for four rock-cut cave temples?

Badami, then called Vatapi, was sacked by a Pallava army in 642 after the Chalukya king was defeated.

Which 12th-century reformer, chief minister to Kalachuri king Bijjala II, spread Lingayat teaching in vachana poems?

Basavanna founded the Anubhava Mantapa, a hall where people of any caste, and women too, could voice their spiritual ideas.

Which Dewan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918 has his 15 September birthday marked as Engineers' Day across India?

M. Visvesvaraya was chief engineer of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam, and his patented automatic floodgates were first fitted at Khadakvasla near Pune in 1903.

Which Karnataka tiger reserve began as a 90 sq km sanctuary the Mysore maharaja created in 1931?

Bandipur is crossed by national highways, and after speeding vehicles killed many wild animals, some stretches were closed to traffic at night.

Which weapon, first given iron casings by the Kingdom of Mysore, blew up a British ammunition store at Pollilur in 1780?

Rockets with iron tubes for the propellant flew close to 1,000 yards, and after Srirangapatna fell in 1799 the Woolwich Arsenal copied captured ones into the Congreve rocket.

Which Karnataka waterfall, where the river splits around an island, has fed a hydroelectric station since 1902?

Shivanasamudra's plant was taken up while K. Seshadri Iyer was Dewan of Mysore, and by 1905 its current was lighting Bengaluru.

Which Chalukya emperor, praised in Ravikirti's Aihole inscription, forced Harsha to retreat at the Narmada?

Pulakeshin II later lost to the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who invaded around 642 and may have killed him.

Which Hassan district village names the oldest known Kannada inscription, dated to about 450 CE and found in 1936?

Halmidi's slab is kept by the state archaeology office in Mysuru while the village displays a fibreglass replica, and the text is cut in the script of Karnataka's first native dynasty.

Which 10th-century Jain poet, court poet of Arikesari II and honoured as Adikavi, wrote Kannada's Vikramarjuna Vijaya?

Pampa's Vikramarjuna Vijaya retells the Mahabharata with Arjuna, not Yudhishthira, crowned king after the war.

Which Shivamogga district village hosts a rainforest research station devoted to king cobras?

Agumbe was transformed into the fictional town of Malgudi, and much of the TV series Malgudi Days was filmed there in the 1980s.

Which 16th-century queen of Ullal, heir under the matrilineal Aliyasantana system, fought the Portuguese?

Abbakka Chowta repeatedly held off Portuguese attacks on Ullal, and some hail her as India's first woman freedom fighter.

Which Mysuru district village received India's first Tibetan exile settlement in 1961, on 3,000 acres of state land?

Bylakuppe's Lugsung Samdupling camp was followed by Dickyi Larsoe in 1969, and the area is now home to the Namdroling Monastery.

Which dynasty, founded by Mayurasharma at Banavasi about 345 CE, first used Kannada at an administrative level?

Kadamba founder Mayurasharma was a Vedic student at Kanchi who took up the sword against the Pallavas and won a kingdom of his own.

Which place in the Ramayana does local tradition identify with Anegundi, across the Tungabhadra from the Vijayanagara ruins?

Kishkindha is the Ramayana's monkey kingdom, whose king Sugriva sent out search parties to find Rama's abducted wife, Sita.

Which 16th-century Haridasa, a jewellery merchant who gave away his riches, is the Pitamaha of Carnatic music?

Purandara Dasa framed the graded lessons Carnatic students still begin with, from swaravalis to alankaras, which is why he is called its grandsire.

Which Rhodes Scholar playwright wrote Tughlaq and Hayavadana in Kannada?

Girish Karnad said he meant to be a poet, yet after winning a Rhodes Scholarship he wrote his first play, Yayati, and he later won the 1998 Jnanpith Award.