Adengada okka

About the Okka

Adengada okka goes back about 13 generations (about 400 years), but information in their Family tree goes back to only six generations, starting with karanava Nanjappa. Adengaḍa ancestors probably came from Kerala.

Karanava Theethammayya is revered as a very powerful man. He learnt 64 vidyas in Kerala and was feared because of his esoteric knowledge. He never got married.

Karanava Nanjappa had two wives from the Manepanḍa okka. His first wife died after giving birth to a son named Achayya. Nanjappa then married her sister, when Achayya was still a thott kunji. Achayya built their original ainmane, in Devanoor, and his descendants became the Devanoor branch. Nanjappa wished to have a grand mund mane built in Biḷoor. So he got a tantri from Kerala to lay the kuthi (foundation) for the mund mane in Biḷoor, and brought workmen from Kerala to build it. Appayya, his elder son by his second wife, was settled in the mund mane and inherited the property in Biḷoor. His descendants became the Biḷoor branch.

The two branches have a common kaimada and a common pattedara. They celebrate karanang kodpa and Puthari together, and observe mutual pole-thale.

Karanava Nanjappa was very wealthy and powerful, owning 25,000 bhattis (nearly 750 acres) of wetland. King Lingaraja who heard that he was like a ruler in this area became anxious that he might challenge his authority, So he got him captured by his soldiers and brought to his court in Madikeri to get him executed. However, when he saw Nanjappa he was impressed by his stature and his bold demeanour. Instead of pleading for his life, Nanjappa asked the king to tell him why he was captured when he had committed no crime, and why he was insulted by being tied up and brought to the court. Diwan Ponnappa who came there recognized Nanjappa and told the king that he was his cousin-brother. The king then asked Nanjappa to name what he wanted from him. Nanjappa replied that he had enough land. All he wanted was to be sent back home with honour. The king gifted him an odi kathi and sent him back with a valaga band, body guards with spears (which the okka has), and two labourers with scythes to tap toddy. The king also declared that 100 bhattis of the land owned by Nanjappa would be converted to umbali land and he would not be taxed on it. (The okka has the royal decree that states this.)

Nanjappa was imprisoned by Tipu’s soldiers in Srirangapatna in 1785. When Diwan Cheppuḍira Ponnappa heard of this, he hired ‘trouble-makers’, gave them horses and money to bribe the guards in the Srirangapatna prison, and got them to free Nanjappa and bring him back to Kodagu. – Diwan Ponnappa himself was imprisoned by Tipu in Srirangapatna and escaped with the help of dhobis.

In another version of the story, a Jamma Thurka from Biḷoor duped the guards in the Srirangapatna prison and managed to free Nanjappa, whom he got dressed as a woman (in a burkha), and brought him back.

About 3 acres of land has been kept aside for the maintenance of this ainmane in Devanoor. The same area of land has been kept aside in Biḷoor also for maintaining the mund mane there.

Moolapurusha

• Nanjappa

Ainmane

Eminent people

Doctor

• Adengada A Kushalappa-dermatologist

Dentist

• Addengada Nanaiah

Entrepreneur

• Adengada Rajesh Achaiah