Located in the Indian state of Karnataka, Doddaballapura serves as both the district headquarters and the city of Bangalore Rural district. In local Kannada, dodda is the word for “big”. It is an industrial city located 40 kilometers from Banglore and home to various multinational corporations.

A 1598 AD report from the nearby Adinarayana temple refers to the location as Ballalapura thanda. It may have started out as the Hoysala name Ballala before becoming corrupted into Ballapura. The town’s founding is said to have been signaled by a cow dropping a single “balla” of milk on an anthill, which is another source of the village’s name. Thus, the name Ballapura was formed from the word “balla.”