History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c48.3

v2.c48.3

In the case of Vizianagram, the claim to Rajput origin seems to have been tacitly acknowledged by the Rajputs of Rajputana and by accurate historians of the type of Prof. Jadunath Sarkar. Prof. Sarkar, writing of the foundation of the Chiefship of Vizianagram, in the first volume of his monumental work on Aurangzeb, says : "In 1652 a Rajput officer of Golkonda seized Vizagapatam and extending his conquest formed a petty Rajahship."¹ quoted in a footnote in his page is the *Imperial Gazetteer*, (Vols. X, XII & XXIV). Out of these volumes only Vol. XXIV contains any reference to the Vizianagram family. Prof. Sarkar refers to page 339 in this Volume and on this page we find the following statement : "The family claims descent from Madhavavarma, who led a Rajput colony into the Kistna valley in A. D. 591 and whose descendants held important posts at the court of Golconda. In 1652 one of these, Pusapati Madhavavarma, entered Vizagapatam." The claim to Rajput descent and the tacit acceptance of the statement in the *Gazetteer* made Prof. Sarkar admit that the conqueror of Vizagapatam in 1652 was a Rajput. The Maharaja of Vizianagram is no doubt admitted to be a Rajput at the present day and intermarriages are taking place with the highest Rajput families. But the facts to be taken into consideration in deciding the claim of a descent from a Rajput clan are :—(1) the date when a migration is said to have taken place, and (2) the conditions of the migration, *e.g.*, different versions of the same story and their probability.