Mahileyara Bhavachitragalu

Portraits of women in
Karnataka History

Mahileyara Bhavachithragalu features the ‘not-so-well-behaved’ women who’ve made history, crossing societal barriers and broken norms along the way.

In historical narratives from India, women are often sidelined – scattered, few and far between – stories of women from the south are even rarer in national narratives. In an attempt to redress this imbalance we tilted our gaze and initiated ‘Mahileyara Bhavachithragalu’, a research and interpretation project that features portraits of women from Karnataka. We pored through historical and contemporary representations in art, artifacts, myths, sculpture, folklore, travel accounts and popular culture of queens, warriors and administrators, poets and ‘the common’ woman.

As a starting study we focussed our attention on Rani Abakka, the defiant and colourful coastal queen from Ullal. a sea port in Karnataka. Abakka was trained from a young age in diplomacy, martial arts and military science. To strengthen her position, the queen was married to Lakshmappa, the Banga prince of neighbouring Mangalore. Lakshmappa was a supporter of the Portuguese, while Abakka strongly opposed the Portuguese monopolization of Indian trade. As a result of their differences the marriage did not last long and Abakka divorced her husband; returning all her jewels as a symbolic gesture. Though her story is celebrated in Yakshagaana, folk tales and songs, we found very few children or adults knew of her even in Bangalore!

Not One, Three?

Archival records, travelogues of Portuguese travellers and folklore indicate that were three Queen Abakkas: mother and two daughters, who boldly repelled many of attacks by the Portuguese between 1530 and 1620. In our retelling we also treat the three as a single character.