The Thanjavur Nayak kingdom or Thanjavur Nayak dynasty were the rulers of Thanjavur principality of Tamil Nadu in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Nayaks were originally appointed as provincial governors by the Vijayanagara Emperor in the 14th century, who divided the Tamil country into three Nayakships viz., Madurai, Tanjore and Gingee. In the mid 16th century they became an independent kingdom, although they continued their alliance with the Vijayanagara Empire. The Thanjavur Nayaks were notable for their patronage of literature and the arts.
Rama Deva Raya ascended the throne after a gruesome war in 1617 as the King of Vijayanagara Empire. In 1614 his father, Sriranga II the preceding King and his family were gruesomely murdered by rival factions headed by Jagga Raya, who was one of their kins. Rama Deva himself was smuggled out of the prison by Yachama Naidu, a faithful commander and the viceroy of earlier king Venkata II.
Vyankoji Bhonsle or Ekoji I Bhonsle was the younger half-brother of Shivaji and founder of Maratha rule in Thanjavur. He was the progenitor of the junior branch of the Bhonsle family which ruled Thanjavur until the formal annexation of the kingdom by the British in 1855.
The Thanjavur Maratha kingdom of the Bhonsle dynasty was a principality of Tamil Nadu between the 17th and 19th centuries. Their native language was Marathi. Venkoji was the founder of the dynasty.
Govinda Dikshita (Dikshitar) was the minister of three successive Nayaks of Thanjavur, who ruled the region of Thanjavur in South India between the 16th and 17th centuries CE.
Pudukkottai was a kingdom and later a princely state in British India, which existed from 1680 until 1948.
Sriman Hiranyagarbha Ravikula Raja Muthu Vijaya Raghunatha Raja Raghunatha Deva Kilavan Setupati was first Raja of Ramnad. He ruled from 1673 to 1708 and oversaw the growth of the feudal chieftainship of Ramnad into a powerful kingdom. He rescued the Nayak of Madurai from the tyranny of Rustam Khan and also successfully campaigned against the King of Thanjavur, who later ceded all his territories.
The Thondaman Dynasty was an Indian dynasty that ruled the region in and around Pudukottai from the 17th to 20th century. It was founded by Raghunatha Thondaiman, the brother-in-law of the then Raja of Ramnad, Raghunatha Kilavan Setupati.
The estate of Ramnad was a permanently settled zamindari estate that existed in the Ramnad subdivision of the Madura district and later Ramnad district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency in British India from 1801 to 1949.
The Sethupathis are a Tamil clan of the Maravar community native to the Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, India. They were from the 17th century considered independent kings who ruled the Ramnad kingdom, also known as Maravar country. Among the seventy two poligars of the region, the Sethupathi stood first. This special position was conferred not based upon the revenue that his kingdom generated but because of his military prowess. Back in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Sethupathi ruler could mobilize a considerable army, about 30,000 to 40,000 strong at short notice(one week).
The Nayaks of Gingee (Senji) were rulers of the Gingee principality of Tamil Nadu between 16th to 18th century CE. They were subordinates of the imperial Vijayanagara emperors, and were appointed as provincial governors by the Vijayanagar Emperor who divided the Tamil country into three Nayakships viz., Madurai, Tanjore and Gingee. Later, after the fall of the Vijayanagara's Tuluva dynasty, the Gingee rulers declared independence. While they ruled independently, they were sometimes at war with the Tanjore neighbors and the Vijayanagara overlords later based in Vellore and Chandragiri.
Achuthappa Nayak was the Thanjavur Nayak king who ruled from 1560 to 1614. From 1560 to 1580, he was co-monarch along with his father and from 1580 to 1614, he ruled on his own. His reign is generally regarded as one of peace and stability.
Vijaya Raghava Nayak was the fourth and last king of Sevappa Nayak's line. He ruled from 1634 to 1673. In 1673, Vijaya Raghava Nayak was defeated in battle by the Madurai Nayak king Chokkanatha Nayak who captured and beheaded him.
Chemakura Venkataraju was a Telugu poet in the court of the Thanjavur Nayak king Raghunatha Nayak who ruled from 1600 to 1634. He wrote Vijayavilasamu, a prabandha on the marriage of the Indian mythological hero Arjuna with Ulupi and Subhadra. In a preface to the work, Venkataraju heaps praise on Raghunatha Nayak. Chemakura was the first person to write a prabandha on Sarangadhara, an epic popular in Western India
Madhuravani was a scholar and poet who lived in Thanjavur during the reign of the Thanjavur Nayak king Raghunatha Nayak. She is widely renowned for her Sanskrit translation of Raghunatha's Ramayana kavya. She also wrote many other Sanskrit works such as Kumarasambhavam and Naishadham. Tharu and Lalita says that she "could compose poetry in three languages and was an expert in ashtavadhanam ."
Rāmabhadrāmbā was a poet and consort of the Thanjavur Nayak king Raghunatha Nayak. She wrote the Sanskrit epic Raghunathabdyudayam, a biography of her husband. Ramabhadramba was also a disciple of the Telugu poet Chengalva Kalakavi. Tharu and Lalita says that she "could compose poetry in three languages and was an expert in Ashtavadhanam ." They also claim that she was a historian who left behind "accounts of the political and military events in Raghunandanayaka's reign" and has documented the presence of several women composers in the court.
The Raghunāthābhyudayam by Rāmabhadrāmbā, one of the wives of the Thanjavur Nayak king Raghunatha Nayak, is a Sanskrit mahākāvya in twelve cantos. It was designed to valorise Raghunatha, situating his career as a type of the life of Rāma-Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa.
Raghunatha Reddy is an Indian actor from Andhra Pradesh. He acted in more than 370 films. Apart from Telugu, he also acted in Tamil, Hindi and Bhojpuri films. He appears in Telugu TV serials also.
