Page:A Family History of Venkatagiri Rajas.djvu/165

 persons every-day. He also bought the big building in Dasa Asvamedha Ghat. In 1876 in his fifth pilgrimage to Benares he was invited by the Governor of Madras which he first accepted but he could not subsequently attend on account of the great famine in his estate. After handing over charge of the estate to his son he spent his time mostly in visiting such sacred places.

These several pilgrimages are not only numerically important, but bore also good result in the form of public charities, religious improvements and the like. In 1857, the village of Lingasamudram in Venkatagiri taluk was made a free religious endowment to Varadaraja Swami at Venkatagiri, besides the silver kite and others presented for the annual festival. In the chief temple of Kasi Viswanatha in Venkatagiri he got two idols of Mathrubhutheswara and Sree Rama set up by his mother. In 1859 he gave substantial help to one of his court pandits Garudachala