Alupas

A thousand years of subordination

The Alupas held Aluvakheda, the coastal strip between the Ghats and the sea in what is now Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, from about the fifth century to the fifteenth. In that span they acknowledged in turn the Kadambas, Bādāmi Chalukyas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, Western Chalukyas, Hoysalas and Vijayanagara — and survived them all.

Their durability came from the same source as the Alupas' obscurity: a narrow, wet, densely populated coast that was worth taxing but not worth garrisoning, reached from the plateau only by difficult passes.

Tulu Nadu

The Alupa period established the distinctive culture of the Tulu coast — its Jain basadis, its matrilineal inheritance among several communities, its bhūta spirit cults, and the wooden temple architecture of Karkala and Mudabidri. Jainism was strong here longer than almost anywhere else in India, and the Jain colossi at Karkala and Venur, raised under the Alupas' successors, continue the Śravaṇabeḷagoḷa tradition.

The line was absorbed into Vijayanagara's administration in the fifteenth century, and the coast was thereafter governed by Vijayanagara's Barkur and Mangalore viceroys and by the Keladi Nayakas.