Call of Kavaledurga

Here are some sketches I created from memory of some of the places of Kavaledurga, the hill-fort beyond Tirthahalli in Shimoga district. I was lucky to have to have lived on this hill for 5 days during 2008 pre-rain on a measured-drawing trip of the excavated Palace, for the ASI. The submitted report consisted of Photographs and Measured drawings.There are few layers of walls, many gates (small and large) and bastions that I explored deep in the jungles around the main track of Kavaledurga trek to the summit. I will share some pictures in the next post, but I begin with sketches to evoke your imagination.

I also used these sketches in my travel article on Kavaledurga for the Terrascape magazine.

The place... it is for me so far, like no other. It is the perfect world of a LaraCroft game Tomb Raider! Full of surprises - jungle, fortifications and ruined structures.

Peeping out from the southern jungle
towards a layer of fort wall

Kavaledurga hill from the base village

First gate on the climb

Nagi-kund on left after second Gate

Kund behind and below (south-east) of the main temple

Tree at the basition on rock,
on the eastern wall

The shrine at the top of the Kavaladurga hill
sits atop a boulder looking to the west

View India out there in a larger map