A little over two years ago, Sandeep blogged about his climb up Nijagal and the Battle of Nijagal. In my book, that post remains one of the best descriptions of a fort and the period of history surrounding the battle. Soon after, I attempted to locate the hill on a map. The directions on Sandeep’s blog were exact enough for me to pin-point the hill on the map below. Generally, I move onto to using Google Maps to see the satellite image of the area but in this case, at that time, Google folks probably hadn’t purchased detailed imagery of the area. So I left it at that. Recently, I went through my list of pending identifications and decided to check out Nijagal once again. Fortunately, this time Google Maps got the scale just right and here is the result.
Nijagal is on the left side of NH4 when driving from Bangalore to Tumkur, just a few kilometers ahead of Dobbespet.
Map snippet below shows Nijagal and Dobbespet on a more detailed map. The hill with the fort is marked with a cross on a topographic map along with markings for “Nijagal” and “Dobbespet”.
And finally, the satellite image that helped locate the ruins of the fort on the hill.
While mapping a fort, I usually look out for other fortifications in the same area. Such fortifications generally form an outer line of defense or outposts over villages and towns that deserve closer attention of the rulers.
In the case of Nijagal, another hillock due NW seems to have a portion of a fortification still standing. In any case, the walls of Nijagal are fairly noticeable. Zooming into the two marked points on the map below will highlight the walls that I have marked.
Over 1300 Forts Documented 