Kingdom of Coorg
| Kingdom of Coorg Princely State of Coorg |
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| ಕೊಡಗು ಸಂಸ್ಥಾನ | ||||||||||
| Kingdom (Subordinate to Kingdom of Mysore between 1780 and 1788). Princely state under the suzerainty of the British Crown after 1790 |
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| Capital | Piriyapatna, Madikeri | |||||||||
| Languages | Kodava, Kannada | |||||||||
| Religion | Hinduism | |||||||||
| Government | Monarchy until 1790, Principality thereafter | |||||||||
| History | ||||||||||
| • | Established | 16th century AD | ||||||||
| • | Earliest records | |||||||||
| • | Disestablished | 1834 | ||||||||
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The Kingdom of Coorg was an independent kingdom which existed till 1834. It was ruled by a branch of the Ikkeri Nayaka. From 1780 to 1788, the kingdom was occupied by neighbouring Mysore but the Rajah of Coorg was restored by the British and became a protectorate of British India on 26 October 1790. In 1834, the then Raja of Coorg rebelled against British authority sparking the Coorg War. The rebellion was brutally quelled by the British who annexed the kingdom and made it a province of British India.
Although, Rājendranāme, a "royal" genealogy of the rulers of Coorg, written in 1808, makes no mention of the origin of the lineage, its reading by historian Lewis Rice led him to conclude that the princely line was established by a member of the Ikkeri Nayaka family. Having moved south to the town of Haleri in northern Coorg in the disguise of a wandering Jangama monk, he soon began to attract followers; then, with their help, or their acquiescence, he took possession of the town, and in such manner came to rule the entire country. (See Map 11.) According to the genealogy, the Coorg rajas who ruled from the mid-16th century to the mid-18th century were:
Muddu Raja, the Coorg ruler from 1633 to 1687, initially ruled from the town of Haleri, but later moved his capital to Mercara, which he fortified and where he built a palace in 1681. Early during the rule of his successor, Dodda Virappa (1687–1736), the army of the neighboring kingdom of Mysore, under the orders of Wodeyar Chikka Devaraja, attacked and seized Piriyapatna, a territory which abutted Coorg (see Map 11), and which was then being ruled by a kinsman of Dodda Virappa. Buoyed by the victory, the Mysore army soon attacked Coorg itself; however, it had advanced only a short distance, when, while camping overnight on the plain of Palupare, it was surprised by a Coorg ambush. In the ensuing massacre, the Mysore army lost 15,000 men, and the survivors had to beat a hasty retreat. For most of the next two decades, the western reaches of Mysore remained vulnerable to attacks by the Coorg army. In the border district of Yelusavira, the Coorg and Mysore forces fought to a stalemate and, in the end, had to work out a tax sharing arrangement.
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