MANUAL OF THE NILAQTRI DISTRICT. 



269 



to the Hills on the break-up of the Vijayanagar empire is impro- CHAP. XI. 

 bable, for they seem to have regarded the representatives of early 

 that empire with dislike, whilst they still call the Mysore History . 

 chiefs (true Kanarese) their Kartas or lords. The name of the 

 fort at Kotagiri — Udiaraya-kota, i.e., the Wodearaya's fort — 

 seems also to indicate that it was the hold of a hostile raya (title 

 of the Vijayanagar kings) rather than of a friendly chief.* 



Kdja Wodear's conquests appear to have embraced the whole 

 of the district of Mysore.^ His rule, Colonel Wilks states, was 

 " remarkable for the rigour and severity which he exercised 

 towards the subordinate Wodeas and his indulgence towards 

 the ryots." The Wodeas were generally dispossessed and kept 

 in confinement on a scanty allowance at the seat of govern- 

 ment ; and it was the policy of Raja Wodear to reconcile the 

 ryots to the change by exacting from them no larger sums 

 than they had formerly paid. The comparatively impoverished 

 condition of the Wodeas on the Hills, though they are still 

 exceedingly proud, may have been the result of these stringent 

 measures. 



Raja Wodear's successor, Chama Rdja (1617-1636), continued 

 his predecessor's policy towards the Wodeas, and sought to extend 

 his dominions below the ghdts towards Madura. Thus he came into 

 conflict with the great Tirumala Nayak, who had recently come 

 to the throne (1628). The invaders were defeated by the famous 

 Ramapayya, who pursued them up the Gajalhatti Pass, and who 

 is said to have taken Mysore.^ Wilks is silent regarding this 

 expedition. It should be remarked here that during the latter 

 half of the sixteenth century Visvanatha and his successors, 

 the founders of the Nayak dynasty, had gradually brought the 

 Kanarese and Telugu chiefs of the country lying below the ghats 

 to the north and west of Madura under their hegemony, by 

 inclusion in the feudal fraternity known as the Madura Falaya- 

 karans.^ It was possibly during this period that the revenue 

 system of Coimbatore was introduced on the hills, and aloug 

 with it the Kanakan or writer class, for at no period subsequent 



1 Colonel Wilks assigns to the fifty years which succeeded the battle of Tali- 

 kdta " the origin or improvement of most of the drooga or fortified places of the 

 Karuatio proper and of Baramahal." Vol. I, Chapter III. 



'^ In a map illusiratiug the history of Mysore, Mr. Rice does not include the 

 Nilagiris in Mysore at Wodear Riija's death, but it is so included at Chikka 

 Deva's death in 1701. He does not slate when it was acquired, but in the 

 absence of evidence to the contrary, we may reasonably infer it was virtually 

 annexed when Ummatur was conquered, for there can be little doubt that the 

 Nilagiri plateau proper belonged to these rdjas. 



^ Nelson's Manual, Part IV, p. 125. 



* Nelson's Manual, Part III, p. 99. 



