Karnataka

Heraldry of the World
Civic heraldry of India

KARNATAKA STATE

Official blazon

Origin/meaning

The arms are based on the arms of the former Princely State of Mysore, which forms the main part of the present Karnataka State. The crest has been changed to the Indian National Symbol.

Over centuries the double-headed eagle became incorporated in the Hindu tradition and became popular as ‘Gandaberunda’, an avatar of Vishnu. The great dynasties of South India such as the Chalukyas of Vatapi, the Hoysalas of Halebidu in Karnataka, the Kakatiyas of Warangal and Kotas of Guntur in Andhra region, over time adopted Gandaberunda as their chief insignia. The result, this motif can be seen in Chalukyan, Hoysala and Kakatiya temples, across the South.

The Kings of the Vijayanagara empire, who continued this tradition, made the symbol even more popular when they minted the Gandaberunda coins’. The first Vijayanagara ruler to mint these coins was Achyuta Deva Raya the younger brother of the famous Vijayanagara ruler, Krishna Deva Raya, whom he succeeded in 1529. These coins depicted the Gandaberunda holding four elephants in its talons, an act of political symbolism, since the four elephants represented the four Deccani sultanates - Bidar, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda, rivals to Vijayanagara.

After the fall of the Vijayanagara empire in the 16th century, Gandaberunda was adopted as the emblem by the Wodeyars of Mysore. And not surprisingly, when the kingdom of Mysore merged with India, the symbol was retained by the enlarged Mysore state which was later renamed Karnataka in 1973.