VIZAGAPATAM:
which is furnished in European style and contains portraits of several former Mahárájas. Tradition says that five ' Vijayas' or signs of victory, were present at the inception of this fortress. It was named Vijaya-nagaram ('place of victory') after its founder, Rája Vijaya-ráma (Viziaráma) Rázu; and the foundations were laid on Tuesday (Jaya-váram), the tenth day (Vijaya Dasami) of the Dasara festival, in the year Vijaya (1713-14 A.D.) of the Hindu cycle. It is stated that the present building is a reconstruction of the original edifice carried out by one of Bussy's officers in or about 1757.
The Rája has two other residences outside the town; namely, the Púl Bágh bungalow situated in an extensive garden about two miles along the road leading north-eastwards out of the town, and a bungalow on the top of the bare, rocky hill which is so prominent to the north of the place and is locally known as Chóta Himálaya.
The ancient zamindari of Vizianagram, which has been scheduled in Act II of 1904 as inalienable and impartible, pays peshkash and road-cess amounting to some Rs. 5,82,000, or much more than any other in the Presidency. The early history of the family is obscure. Mr. Carmichael's account of it is apparently based on a narrative furnished him by the then Mahárája. The only other chronicle available is one of the Mackenzie MSS.,1[1] which is incorrect in several matters admitting of check and cannot therefore be trusted. The whole subject is a material issue in the big suit about the right to the property which is now being fought out in the District Court, but no pronouncement regarding it is likely to be made for some time. Mr.Carmichael's account may therefore be followed meanwhile2.[2]
This says that the founder of the family was Púsapáti Mádhava Varma, who took his title from the village of Púsapádu,near Kondapalli in the Kistna district, where he resided. In 1652 he moved to Vizagapatam and obtained from Shér Muhammad Khán, the then Faujdar of Chicacole, a lease of the country
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- ↑ 1 Local Records, iv, 1-441. Mr. Grant's 'Political Survey of the Northern Circars' appended to the Fifth Report on the affairs of the E. I. Co., 1812, also contains a few particulars.
- ↑ 2 A statement on the matter compiled (mainly from official records) for the purposes of the suit by Mr. H. W. F. Gillman, I.C.S., has since become available.This differs from Mr. Carmichael's version in saying that Mádhava Varma died in 1685 and that Sitarámachandra was followed in turn by his son Annama Rázu (killed without issue near Rajahmundry in 1696), the latter's brother Tammi Rázu (died without issue in 1698 or 1699), Tammi's adopted son Ananda Rázu (who founded Vizianagram in 1713 and died about 1731), the latter'a first consin Sitaráma Rázu (poisoned in 1740) and then by Viziaráma Rázu I(Ananda Rázu's son) who was assassinated at Bobbili in 1757.
