Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/318

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VIZAGAPATAM.

the Collector, in settling the north of the district when it was then taken from Vizianagram and re-apportioned among its former proprietors. At the permanent settlement of 1803 this property was granted to Sómasundara Náráyana Pátro as a permanent zamindari under the name of the Belgám estate.1[1] The family use the title Tát Rája. Sómasundara Náráyana died in 1814; his son and successor Dhananjaya in 1849; his brother Visvambara, the third zamindar, in 1865; his son and successor, Náráyana Rámachandra in 1871; his nephew and adopted son'2 [2] Sivanáráyana, the fifth zamindar, in 1882; and the last-named's son and successor, Dhananjaya, died in 1888, without issue, leaving a widow to whom he had given power to adopt. The widow was not competent to manage the estate and it was accordingly taken over by the Court of Wards. In 1891 the widow adopted a son who was taken under the charge of the Court. Meanwhile, however, Súrya Náráyana and Sundaranáráyana, two cousins of her late husband's (descendants, with him, of the Visvambara who died in 1865) had brought suits for the partition of the estate. They won their cases both in the District and High Courts and before the Privy Council,3[3] and the property was recovered from the Court of Wards and divided into the two portions (or 'hundas') of Párvatípur and Belgám, of which Súrya Náráyana took the former and Sundaranáráyana the latter.

Súrya Náráyana Tát Rája died on 8th December 1900, leaving a minor son, Chandrasékhara, born on 6th June 1894; and his brother Sundaranáráyana died on the 9th February following, leaving two sons of whom the elder, Janárdana, was born on 9th March 1888. Both estates were taken again under the Court of Wards. The two brothers had jointly borrowed 5½ lakhs from the Mahárája of Jeypore on a mortgage of the two hundas. To liquidate this and other debts the Court sold Narisipuram and eight other villages in the two properties in 1902 to the Mahárája of Jeypore. These are sometimes called the Narisipuram tána of Jeypore estate.

Sangamvalasa : Lies four miles west of Párvatípur; population 1,335. It is the chief village in the ancient zamindari of the same name, which has been scheduled as inalienable and impartible in Act II of 1904.

Tradition says that this estate was originally granted by Rámachandra Deo I of Jeypore (1708-11) to a favourite retainer,

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  1. 1 Mr. Alexander's report of 26th April 1803.
  2. 2 A suit (O.S. 18 of 1870 on the file of the District Court) questioning this adoption was eventually compromised.
  3. 3 Madras Law Journal (1893) iii, 100 and I.L.R., XX Madras, 25G.