# Vizagapatam/Gazetteer/Viravilli Taluk

VIRAVILLl TALUK.
Adjoins Srungavarapukóta on the south-west and, like it, lies close under the 3,000 feet plateau and includes the slopes of this up to the main crest. The Minamalúr ghát (p 136) leads up to the plateau from Mádgole. The area on the hills is inhabited almost exclusively by Telugus and contains scarcely any of the real hill tribes. The low country resembles the adjoining tracts and includes only two places of interest:— -
Chódavaram is the head-quarters of the taluk, the station of a district munsif, and a union of 5,705 inhabitants. It contains an old fort where little gold coins are sometimes found and in which lies an ancient cannon, seven feet long.
In the small temple of Késavasvámi are six inscriptions of which five (one of which is dated in Saka 1389, or A.D. 1467) mention 1 Sríman Mahámandalésvara Pratápa Vallabha Rája, who, from his title Mahámandalésvara, must have been some local chief and not a ruling king Perhaps he built the fort.
Hanging from a tree in the deputy tahsildar's compound is one of the old iron cages in which (cf. p. 313) the bodies of notorious criminals used to be gibbeted after execution. It was formerly suspended from a gallows, but this rotted to pieces and it was then brought to its present situation. It was made for the body of one Asi Dora, mokhásadár of Pedda Madina, who was hanged in March 1840 for the murder, on the night of 6th March 1837, of Kastúri Appayya Pantulu, the Collector's sheristadar, as he was returning from office in a palanquin. It appears that after the Vizianagram estate was placed under the management of the Collector in 1827 (p. 339), endeavours, in which the sheristadar was very active, were made (see p. 176) to assess to kattubadi the numerous mokhásas and inams which up to then had escaped rent-free. The murder was a result of the unpopularity which the sheristadar incurred in consequence, and the Government gave his widow a life pension of Rs. 105 a month, being half the salary her husband was drawing at the time of his death.
Mádgole (Mádugula) : A union of 8,952 inhabitants lying eleven miles north-west of Chódavaram, close under the hills near the foot of the Minamalúr ghát. Its position makes it an important mart for the produce of the hills. ​ It is the head-quarters of the inalienable and impartible ancient zamindari of the same name. This comprises the agency portion of the taluk, which in consequence is often called 'Hill Mádgole.' The Mádgole zamindars claim to be descended from the rulers of Matsya Désa ('the fish country', cf. p. 28). They are installed at Pádéru on a stone throne shaped like a fish, display a fish on their banners, use a figure of a fish as their signature, and zealously protect from harm the mahseer in the Matsya gundam ('fish pool') referred to on p. 285 above. Some of their dependents wear earrings shaped like a fish. Other accounts say that they came to this country with the founder of the Jeypore family, whose cousins they were, who gave them the Mádgole country as a fief, and the title of Bhúpati ('lord of the earth') which they still bear.
No details of their history survive until 1770, when, says Mr. Carmichael, Linga Bhúpati, the then zamindar, joined in the general revolt against the power of Vizianagram (p. 46), was dispossessed by Sítaráma Rázu with the aid of the Company's troops, and fled with his family to Jeypore, where he eventually died. Sítaráma is said to have made the oblong brick fort with five bastions at Maágole within which is the present residence of the zamindars. The Circuit Committee (p. 167) said in 1784 that it had been constructed after the European model by bricklayers from Madras and was then garrisoned with a battalion, about 1,000 strong, dressed and armed in the European manner.
After the Rája of Vizianagram was slain at Padmanábham in 1794 (p. 53), the Collector recalled the Mádgole family from their exile at Jeypore and gave the estate to Jagannátha, the paternal nephew of the Linga Bhúpati mentioned above. His title was contested by Appála Bhúpati, an illegitimate son of his uncle; the claim was rejected; but the pretender managed to collect the revenue of the hill villages and to give a great deal of trouble. In 1803 the permanent settlement was made with Jagannátha Bhúpati.
In 1813 the estate was sold for arrears and bought for Rs. 5,000 by one Chintalapati Rázu, who transferred it in the next year to Chinchiláda Venkata Rázu. In 1814 this man sold the Chidikáda subdivision (which however returned to the estate in 1821) and in 1817 he transferred the rest of the property to Linga Bhúpati, eldest son of Jagannátha. Linga Bhúpati was succeeded in 1831 by his eldest wife, Rámayya, who in the following year transferred the estate to her husband's half brother, Harihara, who died the same year and was followed by ​his brother Krishna Bhúpati. In 1833 the zamindari was again sold for arrears; was bought by Government for Rs. 1,000; but in 1834 was handed back to Krishna Bhúpati on his tendering the amount outstanding.
In 1833 the latter had again alienated the Chidikáda subdivision, selling it to one Mandapáka Jagannáyakulu. This man transferred it in 1835 to the Rája of Bobbili, who in 1836 also bought the Jagannáthapuram subdivision. These two estates are still separate properties. In 1848 the then Rája of Bobbili gave them to his sister's husband Inuganti Rájagópál Rao, whose widow retransferred them to him in 1856. In 1862 he conveyed them to Sitarámasvámi, the son of another sister. The present Mahárája of Bobbili, who is the adoptive grandson of the above Rájagópál Rao, afterwards brought a suit to recover the property,which was carried as far as the Privy Council 1 but was unsuccessful, and the two estates now belong to Inuganti Chinna Sitarámasvámi, who succeeded to them in 1898 as the heir of Sitarámasvámi's widow.
Krishna Bhúpati held Mádgole from 1834 until 1870, when he mortgaged the whole estate to the Mahárája of Jeypore for sixteen years in consideration of a loan of five lakhs. He died on Christmas Day 1875, and left two widows (sisters) named respectively Sita and Nilamani, a daughter called Ammi Dévi who was married to the Jeypore Rájahs brother, but no son.
The two widowed Ránis were registered as his joint successors, but they quarrelled, serious affrays occurred between their retainers, a vakil named Lingam Lakshmaji who had sub-leased the estate from Jeypore was stated to be defrauding them, and eventually in 1877 the estate was taken under the management of the Court of Wards.2 In 1880, however, the junior Ráni was removed from the protection of the Court by an order of the High Court.
Meanwhile the senior Ráni, in virtue of authority given her by the will of the late zamindar, had adopted as a son a boy belonging to the Jeypore family. The junior Ráni disputed the legality of the step, but the High Court upheld the adoption and in 1885 the boy was consequently made a ward of court and the estate treated as his property. The Privy Council, however, set aside the adoption and in 1888 the Collector was instructed to hand the estate over to the senior Ráni (the junior Ráni had died in 1886 leaving a granddaughter named Rájéndramani Dévi; who held it until her death in May 1901. She was succeeded by ​Rájéndramani Dévi and Mukunda Deo (adopted son of Krishna Deo, son of the daughter of Linga Bhúpati mentioned above), who divided the property. Their succession is now disputed in a civil suit brought by one Linga Bhúpati, who says he is the grandson (through an adopted son) of the Rámayya above mentioned. Mukunda Deo died in February 1905, and his widow Chandramani holds his share of the estate.
Meanwhile, in 1882, the account running between the zamindar and the Mahárája of Jeypore had been balanced by a committee appointed by the Collector, and showed that the former owed the latter some Rs. 5,07,000. In 1890 it was agreed that the Mahárája should accept Rs. 3,53,000 in settlement of all his claims and that the repayment of this sum with interest at 4½ per cent, should be secured by the mortgage with possession to the Mahárája of 68 villages of the estate. This mortgage is still running, and the estate is thus divided into two parts, of which one is administered by the Mahárája of Jeypore and the other, which includes the hill villages, by the Mádgole family.
All this litigation, mortgaging and changing of management naturally had the worst possible effect on the administration of the estate, which became a byword for inefficiency. The hold over the hill muttadars maintained by the senior Ráni (Sita) who died in 1901 was most ineffectual; and they quarrelled among one another, bullied their tenants and defied their suzerain until the District Officers were forced to interfere and remove some and punish others. Matters have improved but little since, and it has been necessary to warn the present holders of the estate that they will be held responsible for any trouble that may arise in the hills owing to their unsuitable methods of managing that country.
* ↑ 1 See Sewell's Lists of Antiquities, i, 15.
* ↑ 1 I.L.R., XXI II Madras, 49-55.
* ↑ 2 I.L.R., XI Madras, 486.