Pusapati Ananda Gajapati Raju
To confirm their position, Aurangzeb gifted a double edged sword (Zulfikar), which still remains in the family's coat-of-arms.
The Rajahs of Vizianagaram obtained the title 'Gajapathi' by right of conquest after the battle of Nandapur in the Northern Circars against Balaram Dev III of Jeypore Kingdom in the sixteenth century.
Ananda Gajapati learnt Sanskrit under the guidance of eminent scholars, like Bhagavathula Hari Sastry, Mysore Bhimacharyulu and Mudumbai Narasimha Swamy.
During the rule of Maharajah Ananda Gajapati, education, literature and music received a tremendous fillip and Telugu culture throve considerably.
[1] He was held in awe, reverence and admiration as the most cultured and munificent, the most erudite and graceful, the most accomplished and humane of all the princes of Vizianagaram till his time.
His patronage of scholars, poets, literature, and artists is comparable to Krishna Deva Raya of Hampi Vijayanagaram.
He generously gave financial support of a lakh rupees to Max Müller for his translational work of Rig Veda.
Jagannadha Vilasini was a dramatic society started during his father's reign in 1874 and used to give performances in Sanskrit and Telugu at Pithapuram and Madras.
Ananda Gajapati invited Gomatham Srinivasa Charyulu, known as Indian Garrick to his court and also patronized the play Harischandra he wrote in English.
[2] Vizianagaram Treaty of 15 November 1758 and the end of fifteen years of war between the English and the French for the sovereignty of India from 1744 to 1759 A.D. was the work of a historiographer.
He collected data from more than forty scholars, historians, poets, and documenters; some of the most important are Orme, Broome, Cambridge, Carmichael, Gleiig, Taylor and Adams, Pusapati Vijayarama Raju, Meer Alum, Megasthenes, and Huen Tsang.
His admiration for the glory of his forebears and their glorious past where his ancestors paved the way for the firm establishment of British power in the country culminated in this masterpiece of his research work.
