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| Tulunadu | |
|---|---|
| Name | Tulunadu |
| Country | India |
| State | Karnataka |
Tulunadu is a historical and cultural region on the southwestern coast of India centered around the city of Mangalore and extending into parts of the districts administered from Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, and adjacent coastal taluks. It is known for a distinct ethno-linguistic identity associated with the Tulu language, unique social institutions, and coastal maritime connections linking it to wider Indian Ocean networks such as Arab traders, Portuguese India, and British India.
Etymological proposals in scholarship connect the name to place-names and ethnonyms cited in sources like the Aitareya Brahmana and travelogues of Ibn Battuta, while comparative toponyms appear alongside references to Gangavalli and Netravati River in colonial gazetteers compiled under Madras Presidency and Mysore State. Colonial-era scholars compared classical Sanskrit forms with Dravidian lexemes similar to names recorded by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and James Rennell during surveys for the East India Company.
The coastal plain lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats, draining through rivers such as the Netravati River, Swarna River (Udupi), and Pernem River (regional tributaries). Major urban centers include Mangalore, Udupi, Karkala, Nileshwaram, and Kanhangad (the latter across administrative borders). The physiography links to mountain ecology studies in Western Ghats protected areas and to port histories at Panambur and historic harbors recorded near Bhatkal and Honnavar.
Maritime trade connected local polities to Roman Empire-era exchanges, medieval Arab traders, and later encounters with Vasco da Gama and Afonso de Albuquerque during the Age of Discovery. Local dynasties and polities recorded in inscriptions include the Alupa dynasty, while regional hegemony shifted under the Vijayanagara Empire, Keladi Nayakas, and later incorporation into Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan’s domains before British colonial reorganization under Madras Presidency. Anti-colonial movements and social reform in the twentieth century linked leaders and institutions active in Indian independence movement networks across Bengal Presidency and Bombay Presidency advocacy circles.
The indigenous language, the Tulu language, has a rich oral and manuscript tradition alongside Konkani, Kannada, and Marathi literatures that circulated in temple and courtly settings. Manuscript archives include records written in Tigalari script and palm-leaf codices similar in material to collections at Asiatic Society of Mumbai and Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Notable literary forms include the ritual theatre of Yakshagana and epic ballad cycles comparable to regional epics like those preserved in Kannada literature and Sanskrit literature patronage circles. Scholars in philology and comparative literature from institutions such as Karnataka University and University of Mysore have catalogued oral narratives alongside colonial ethnographies by figures like Herbert Hope Risley.
Distinct performing arts and social customs include ritual theatre forms, folk music traditions, and community institutions with parallels to practices in Kerala and Goa. Annual festivals center on temple precincts similar to those at Udupi Sri Krishna Matha and coastal shrines frequented by devotees from Brahmin and indigenous communities. Architectural heritage ranges from rock-cut and laterite constructions to wooden temple architecture comparable to examples documented in studies of Dravidian architecture and regional temple conservation projects supported by bodies like the Archaeological Survey of India.
Religious practices combine Shaiva, Vaishnava, and local deity cults with folk ritual specialists; precincts such as Udupi Sri Krishna Matha and village shrines enacted rites tied to agricultural and maritime calendars. Spirit-mediumship and ancestral worship feature in traditions related to clan structures, with ritual specialists analogous to those studied in ethnographies of Kerala’s Theyyam and Goa’s folk cults. Contact with missionaries from Portuguese Empire and Protestant missions during the British Raj influenced denominational demographics and led to institutions associated with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Economy historically rested on maritime trade, fisheries, rice cultivation in paddy tracts, and plantation crops such as cashew and coconut, with later diversification into shipping, petrochemicals, and higher education hubs centered on Mangalore University and medical colleges linked to regional hospitals. Demographic composition includes speakers of Tulu language, Kannada language, Konkani language, and Beary communities, alongside caste and community groups recorded in colonial censuses. Modern infrastructure connects ports such as New Mangalore Port, airports like Mangalore International Airport, and road and rail corridors part of national networks under Indian Railways and National Highway 66.
Category:Regions of Karnataka