Bangalore: Karnataka

Bangalore is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is India’s 3rd largest city [1] and 5th largest metropolitan area , with an estimated 2006 metropolitan population of about 6.5 million.

After India gained independence in 1947, Bangalore evolved into a manufacturing hub for public sector heavy industries. Within the last decade, the establishment and success of high technology firms in Bangalore has led to the growth of Information Technology (IT) in India. IT firms in Bangalore employ about 30% of India’s pool of 1 million IT professionals.

Bangalore has several Armed Forces related institutions within city limits. The city is also the scientific hub of India, and is the home of the Indian Institute of Science.

On December 11, 2005, Chief Minister Dharam Singh announced that the state government accepted Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy’s suggestion to rename Bangalore to its Kannada name, Bengaluru. The new name will be effective from November 1, 2006.

Origin of name

The name Bangalore is an anglicized version of the city’s name in Kannada - Bengaluru. The earliest reference to the name Bengaluru was found in a 9th century Ganga Dynasty stone inscription on a “veera kallu” (literally, hero stone - a rock edict extolling the virtues of a warrior). This inscription was found in Begur and Bengaluru is referred to as a place in which a battle was fought [3].

According to sources, “An inscription, dating back to 890 A.D., shows Bangalore is over 1,000 years old. But it stands neglected at the Parvathi Nageshwara Temple in Begur near the city…(w)ritten in hale Kannada (old Kannada) of the 9th Century, the epigraph refers to a Bengaluru war in 890 AD in which Buttanachetty, a servant of Nagatta, died. Though this has been recorded by historian R. Narasimhachar in his “Epigraphia of Carnatica” (Vol. 10 supplementary), no efforts have been made to preserve it.”

Some scholars believe that the name has a floral origin and is derived from the tree Benga or “Ven-kai”, also known as the Indian (or Malabar) Kino Tree (Pterocarpus marsupium) .

A popular anecdote (although one contradicted by historical evidence) recounts that Hoysala king Veera Ballala, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor, old woman who served boiled beans. The grateful king named the place benda kaluru (literally, town of boiled beans), which was eventually colloquialized to Bengaluru.

The Imperial Gazetteer of British India states that word of this incident eventually spread and the town that sprang up around the village was eventually called Bengaluru [5]. That town, now called Hale Bengaluru (Old Bangalore) exists to the north of present-day Bangalore, besides Kodigehalli village. It was Kempe Gowda I, who named present-day Bangalore as Bengaluru, since his mother and his wife hailed from Hale Bengaluru.

The discovery of the Ganga Dynasty inscription however negated the claim that Veera Ballala founded the city.