Krishnarajapuram

The story of Krishnarajapuram

Krishnarajapura, or K.R. Pura, is an eastern suburb of Bengaluru, and this is the kind of place where an old settlement sits inside a busy urban edge. The area was named after Krishnaraja Wadiyar III, who ruled the provincial state of Mysuru from 1799 to 1869.

What gives the locality its historical interest is not a single monument but traces of an older village layered into it. KR Puram had been a small hamlet on the way to Kolar, and a Ganga period connection is recorded here during Sripurusha. Evidence for that period survives in hero stones, or Veeragallu, found at Krishnarajapuram town. Near the Mahabaleshwara temple complex, an inscription preserved in the Bangalore museum mentions Hosauru and one Mareya’s sacrifices for the protection of village.

The place also carries newer names from the Wodeyar period: the name was changed to Krishnapura from around 1816. So when you stand here, you are looking at a locality whose identity has shifted over time, from hamlet to suburb, while keeping older inscriptions and memorial stones as reminders of the earlier settlement.

For orientation, the Old Madras Road passes through this locality, and Vengayyana Lake lies in the heart of the area. Just outside the eastern limits of K.R. Pura is the Yele Mallappa Shetty Lake near Medahalli, one of the largest lakes in Bengaluru. The neighbourhood also houses certain central and state government offices, because Krishnarajapura is the headquarters of the Bengaluru East taluk.

If you want the clearest historical traces to look for, think of the hero stones and the inscription linked to the Mahabaleshwara temple complex; they are the strongest reminders that this is more than a transit suburb.