64. Puraal and Polali

Ancient river course of Gurpur river shown in brown short-dash lines.Present river course in blue shade. Purple double line shows main roads.

Polali is a well-known temple town on the banks of the River Phalguni (also known as River Gurupur). There is a historical temple dedicated to Rajarajeswari, one of the seven forms of Godess Shakti (or one of the Nava Durgis).
1.The place is known as ‘Puraal’ in Tulu.The word Pural means ‘flute’ according to the ‘Tulu Nighantu’.I feel that this word ‘puraal’ is originally from Mugera language ( a member of Early Munda group, since it is also used in some pad-danas connected with Mugera kolas and folk dances.
2. There is also another meaning for the word ‘puraal’, not included in the said Dictionary. It means ‘stale’ or ‘putrid’. (For example: ‘Meen puraal moori barpunDu’ means that the fish smells stale.).
3. But the geomorphology of the area suggests an altogether different view.The puraal town is located on the river bank, where the said river takes a swift and abrupt turn.The Tulu ‘pural’ or ‘purel’ means to change sides.
I believe the original Tulu name of the place ‘Pural’ came on account of the river geometry of Phalguni which takes an abrupt turn.
4.However, the word ‘Polali’ is a Kannada word which means ‘town’.Obviously the Kannada word ‘Polalu’ or the ‘Polali’ must have been introduced by Kannada rulers (Dwarasamudra Ballals or Vijayanagar Kings) in this area.The Kannada rulers must have mis-translated the original name of ‘Pural ‘as pura+al, considering that ‘pura’ in Sanskrit means a town.
The old Kannada word 'Polalu'('Holalu' in modern Kannada) is equivalent of Tulu 'Purelu'.These words puraal and Polalu signify the historical change in the course of River Gurupur.