Where Faiths Meet
Places and practices where Hindu, Jain, Muslim and folk traditions blend.
Bermer: The First Lord of Tulunadu
Long before the great temples, the Tuluvas honoured Bermer, a god their old songs say made the land itself. Today he rides a horse in the garadis, hides behind other names, and still waits in the corners of temples and fields.
Kadri Manjunatha: The Hill of Many Faiths
On a laterite hill in Mangaluru stands a Shiva temple whose oldest treasure is a Buddhist bronze. Kadri was a monastery, then a seat of the Nath yogis, before it became the temple of Manjunatha, and it still keeps the images of every stage.
Dharmasthala: The House the Daivas Asked For
In a village on the Nethravathi, a Jain chieftain gave his own house to four daivas who came to him as guests. Their messenger brought a Shiva linga from Kadri, and the shrine that grew up around it is still looked after by the chieftain's family, some eight hundred years on.
Empire, Nayakas and Portuguese Guns: Tulunadu from 1345 to 1763
After the Alupas, the coast was run from Vijayanagara, then from Keladi, while the Portuguese pushed in from the sea. Here is who held Tulunadu for four centuries, and what is and isn't certain.
Parashurama and the Coast That Rose from the Sea
The best-known story of how Tulunadu began says the warrior-sage Parashurama threw his axe into the ocean and the land rose where it fell. It is told the length of the west coast, written into temple legends, and questioned by historians.
The Mother Goddess: A Worship Older Than the Temples
Goddesses are everywhere in Tulunadu, from grand temples to village spirits. Some scholars think a worship of the Great Mother lies beneath them all, older than the Vedas. This page sorts what is argued from what is found.
Under Mysore: Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan and the Coast, 1763 to 1799
For thirty-six years Tulunadu was ruled from Mysore, and the coast became a battlefield in the Anglo-Mysore wars. This page covers the siege of Mangalore, the 1784 captivity of Canara's Christians, and how historians read it.
Megalithic Tulunadu: Stones and Clay from Before the Written Word
Long before any inscription or epic names this coast, people here buried their dead in stone and rock-cut chambers and left clay figures behind. A few recent finds are our only direct glimpse of them.
Mangaladevi and Sharavu: Two Temples, One King
Mangaluru takes its name from Mangaladevi, a goddess whose shrine was buried and found again, while a few kilometres away Sharavu was founded by a king who shot a cow by mistake. Their legends share a king, and both temples are still looked after by hereditary families.
Where Tulu Came From: The Language Before the Texts
Tulu is one of the oldest branches of the Dravidian family, but no one has found a 2,500-year-old Tulu text. This page explains how scholars reason about it, and what is still argued.
Before the Alupas: Fragments from Poems, Edicts and Greek Maps
Before the Alupa kings give Tulunadu its first dated rulers, the coast appears only in glimpses: a Sangam poem, a Greek farce, a few foreign place-names. This page lays out the glimpses and how much weight each can bear.
Kudroli Gokarnanatha: The Temple the Billavas Built
In 1912 a Billava businessman and a delegation of elders built a Shiva temple at Kudroli, with the guidance of the Kerala reformer Narayana Guru. It was meant for a community kept out of other temples, and it later became the place where Mangaluru's Dasara procession ends.
Kural Parba: Welcoming the First Harvest Home
Before the harvest proper begins, a Tuluva family walks out to its field, cuts the first ears of new paddy, and carries them home chanting a prayer for plenty. It is a festival kept at home, with no temple and no daiva.
Venkataramana at Karkala: The Tirupati of the West
Refugees from Goa brought their god to Karkala, the Jain capital, and were given land by its Jain king. The temple they built is called Padutirupathi, the Western Tirupati. Its legend has a lost idol, a dream and a hermit who walked from Tirumala.
Kollur Mookambika: The Goddess and the Mute Demon
At the foot of the Kodachadri hills stands the temple of a goddess named for a demon's silence. Her image is a self-born linga with a golden line, with a four-armed goddess behind it, and her pilgrims come from Kerala as much as from Karnataka.
Kukke Subramanya: The Temple of the Serpent's Refuge
In the forested Western Ghats, Subramanya is worshipped as lord of all serpents, because the serpent Vasuki is said to have fled to him from Garuda. Over the centuries the temple has passed from a Gowda family of administrators and Sthanika Brahmin priests to Shivalli priests and the state.
Kateel Durgaparameshwari: The Goddess Who Became a Bee
On an islet in the Nandini river stands a temple whose goddess is said to have killed a demon in the form of a swarm of bees. Its legend is told in the temple's own history and played on stage by the temple's own Yakshagana troupe. The temple also runs schools and a college.
Kodamanithaya, the Daiva Who Followed His Devotees
A royal daiva who walks home behind the people who worship him: a Jain lord returning from the Ganga, a man who gave up his family name, two pilgrims leading an ox and a rooster. Wherever he arrives, he asks for a shrine.
Babbarya, the Daiva of the Sea
The son of a Beary sea-merchant and a Jain mother, born by a miracle, sails a ship cut from a thousand-year-old tree and vanishes off Kaup. He stays on as Babbarya, guardian of the fishermen, and the people of the coast still argue about who he really was.
Mundkur Durgaparameshwari: The Goddess Who Was Turned to Face East
At Mundkur the goddess faces east, but the temple's story says she once faced west, until a Jain ruler turned her to reach the treasure beneath. The village is still run as a single unit, with a hereditary chief of ritual and the Chowta kings once came to its car festival.
Polali Rajarajeshwari: The Clay Goddess and the Football Match
A king who lost his kingdom and a merchant who lost his family are said to have moulded a goddess out of river clay at Polali. Her temple on the Phalguni river is known for the clay image and for Polali Chendu, a football match played as part of her festival.
Halekote Mukhyaprana: Hanuman as the Chief Breath
In the old Halekote quarter of Bolar, a short walk from the Mangaladevi temple, Hanuman is worshipped as Mukhyaprana, the chief life-breath of the Madhva tradition. Little about the temple has been written down, and its local legends come from social media alone. This page keeps the two apart.
Tudar Parba: Calling King Bali Home
In much of India, Deepavali is about gods defeating demons. In the paddy fields of Tulunadu, it is Tudar Parba, the night the good king Bali comes home, and farming families light a torch at the edge of the field to call him.
Kudupu Ananthapadmanabha: One Shrine, Two Stories
At Kudupu, near Mangaluru, a Vishnu temple with an anthill, a pond and hundreds of serpent images is told two different ways: a king who lost his hands and built a temple in one night, and a Brahmin who wanted a child.
Ananthapura: The Lake Temple and Its Crocodile
In a lake at Ananthapura, just over the border in Kerala, a Vishnu temple stands on an island of its own. Tradition calls it the first home of the god of Thiruvananthapuram, and a crocodile that ate only offerings guarded it for decades.
Bappanadu: The Goddess and the Merchant Who Built Her Temple
At Mulki, where two rivers meet, a goddess's temple is named for a Muslim merchant. His boat is said to have struck her lost lingas, and with a Jain king and a Brahmin priest he built her shrine. The story is told at the temple, on the stage and in the village.