In 1664, Somashekara Nayak became the ruler of Keladi. As he roamed about the fair at the Rameshwara temple in Keladi, their family deity, his eye fell upon the young Chennamma, who was the daughter of a Lingayat merchant, Siddappa Shetty. She has been described as having the complexion of a pearl, with bright eyes, a broad forehead, a long nose and curly hair.



Stricken by a coup de foudre, Somasekhara overruled the objections of his ministers who were horrified at her non-royal background, and married her forthwith.

Chennamma now received a royal education in politics and administration, warfare, weaponry, music, arts and literature. She also started participating in the administration, interceding for various applicants.

Unfortunately, they had no offspring.

The Vijayanagara Kings celebrated Dussehra with great pomp, and their vassals continued the tradition. (The Mysore Wodeyar kings were their vassals and the Mysore Dussehra is still famous.) The Dussehra celebrations in Keladi would be accompanied by performances by artists who gathered from all over the region.

King Somasekhara was clearly subject to sudden passions; during one Dussehra, he became enamoured of a dancer Kalavathi of Jambukhandi, and set her up as Royal Dancer and Royal Mistress. Her family and evil stepfather Bharame Mahut accompanied her to Keladi.

The tale goes that the obsessed king moved in with Kalavathi. Bharame Mahut controlled the king with drugs and he gradually fell sick. His ministers had to visit the king in his paramour’s residence for any discussions.

The administration was more or less run by the queen with the help of her ministers, the chief of whom was Thimanna Nayak, a trusted retainer from her father-in-law Shivappa Nayak’s time. The ministers were very worried about the succession, and variously pressured her to adopt their sons. The queen resisted these pressures, maybe hoping for a miracle and the Return of the King.

Thimanna Nayak left in a huff because she disregarded his advice regarding adoption.

The Sultan of Bijapur saw this as an opportune moment to finally acquire the kingdom they had tried to conquer for a century and sent an agent, Jannopant, to talk terms with Chennamma. This was a ruse, as he was followed by an army.

To stave off an invasion, Chennamma gave Jannopant Rs 3 lakh. He apparently bribed Bharame Mahut to finally poison and finish off the king as the Bijapur army arrived at the doorstep.

Bereaved and overwhelmed by the numerical superiority of the Bijapur forces, the queen secretly left with her troops and her treasure for Bhuvanagiri, a fort hidden deep in the jungles and ravines.

There she was joined by Thimanna, who came back in an agony of remorse—in his absence, his king had died, and the kingdom had been occupied by the Bijapur forces. Thimanna got together an army, and managed to ambush the Bijapur force which had ventured into the jungle to catch the queen. The Bijapur army was destroyed and the queen triumphantly returned to Bidnur. She had Jannopant and Bharame Mahut executed, and purged their followers and supporters.

This victory must have helped with what followed. The queen was crowned in her own right in 1671. Unusually, she was not a regent, as she had no heir of the blood she was representing. Chennamma also chose a successor, Basappa, the three-year-old son of a relative, Markappa Shetty, instead of a Nayak boy.

Her ascent to the throne was in spite of the presence of many other family members who were eligible to be king, and who brought forward their claims. Many were to plague her to the end of her days, asking for help from neighbouring kings and other powers, to displace such a monstrosity as a woman who would rule over men, and such a woman, with not a drop of royal blood in her, the daughter of a merchant.

For example, in the Dutch East India Company records, there is a letter it received in 1689 from a Sadashiva Nayak, purporting to be the true king of Ikkeri. He gave an elaborate genealogy of eminent royal ancestors, and assured the Dutch that he had the support of the nobles of Ikkeri, who abhorred the thought of a woman ruling over them. He wanted military help from the Dutch, which they did not proffer. He had been roaming about for the last 17 years trying to find support!

Her ascent was also considered an apt time for neighbours to declare war. Among others, Chikkadevaraya Wodeyar, the king of Mysore, attacked Keladi, supporting the pretensions of Andhaka Venkata Nayak to be king. A number of battles were fought, which finally ended in a friendship treaty.

Chennamma had a punishing schedule—every morning after her bath, prayers and breakfast, she would go to the court and listen to the plaints of her subjects. She would then confer with Basappa Nayak and her ministers on matters of state. After midday prayers, she would spend an hour giving alms to priests and the needy. She also personally supervised Basappa’s training and education.

She survived by maintaining a policy of neutrality with her neighbours, and grew rich on the Portuguese trade. The Portuguese exported spices and rice from the Keladi ports like Mirjan and Honavara; she allowed them to settle and build their churches.

She made a truce with Shivaji in 1675, and he offered her his protection against the Portuguese and the Adil Shahis.

But great changes were now afoot in the Deccan. Shivaji, who had dominated the landscape of the Deccan for 35 years, died in 1680. Aurangzeb now made a push to conquer the Deccan and moved south of the Vindhyas—never to return to the north till his death a quarter century later. The Mughals had been unsuccessfully trying to conquer the Deccan kingdoms since the time of Akbar. Aurangzeb was finally successful—he completed the conquest of Bijapur in 1686 and Golconda in 1687. He then turned his attention to the Marathas, captured their king Sambhaji in 1689, and brutally tortured him to death. The Mughal behemoth now moved into the Maratha strongholds, capturing fort after fort.

The 19-year-old Rajaram, Shivaji’s younger son, now crowned king of the Marathas, decided to flee to the fort of Jinji in the deep south, often considered the most impregnable fort in India. But he had to traverse thousands of kilometers of Mughal territory to reach there. He and a few companions, disguised as Lingayat pilgrims, started moving south, clinging to the Sahyadri. He showed up at the Rani’s daily alms giving as a supplicant, and asked her for shelter.

As per her royal code of conduct, her rajadharma, she felt bound to give shelter to any supplicant, specially the son of her benefactor Shivaji. Against the advice of her aghast ministers, but with the enthusiastic consent of her young son Basappa, whom she had imbued with her chivalric code, the Rani aided Rajaram and facilitated his passage to Jinji.

She had put her kingdom at the risk of destruction by Aurangzeb who had a visceral hatred of the Marathas. Rajaram, not without some hair’s breadth escapes, managed to reach Jinji, and directed the Maratha resistance against the Mughals, later continued by his wife Tarabai.

This then is what Chennamma is really remembered for—this great quixotic act of courage and principle—to take on the wrath of Alamgir, the all-conquering Aurangzeb, on a matter of dharma, against her and her kingdom’s own best interests.

Had Rajaram been captured, the Maratha resistance may not have survived, Aurangzeb would not have emptied out his treasury and decimated his armies trying to fight them, the Mughal empire may not have declined, the British would not have kicked open a rotten door, and India would not have been beggared.

How is that for alternate history!

As Rajaram left, Keladi geared up to face the might of Aurangzeb, fully expecting to be destroyed by the Mughals as effortlessly as an elephant stepping on an ant.

Aurangzeb of course came to know that Rajaram was in Keladi. He sent a letter to the queen along with rich gifts: