Vira Raja, having no sons, resolved in 1796 to marry a second time. The ceremony was honoured by a deputation from the English Commissioner at Malabar and a company of sepoys, and took place amidst a large concourse of people from Coorg and the adjacent provinces. Mahadevamma was declared Rani, and her childrenwere to succeed to the throne of Coorg.
In 1801, Vira Raja contracted a matrimonial alliance between his daughter Rajammaji, by his first Rani, and Basava Linga, the Raja of Sode, who resided in the Goa territories. Vira Raja wrote to the Governor General to apprise him of the intended marriage, and to procure for the Sode Raja three months leave from the Portuguese Government. He also wished to settle upon the Sode Raja, who was poor, one lakh of rupees, out of the property held by him in Bombay Government paper, as Rajammaji's portion. The wedding took place in December 1801 at Nalknad.
Before the end of 1805, Rajammaji, the Rani of Sode, was delivered of a son, who received the name of Sadasiva Raja. Meanwhile, Vira Raja had grown very fond of his new wife Mahadeva Rani, who had borne him two daughters, and might have lived and died a happy man, if he had had a son and heir, if he had not distrusted his nearest relatives, and if his violent temper had not often carried him beyond the bounds of humanity. He lived in constant dread of poison, and it was difficult to say whether the frenzy which seemed at times to seize him was not caused by drugs administered to him in spite of all his caution.
In Jan 1806, Vira Raja told Captain Mahoney that on the day of his second marriage he had determined that any son of his by this wife should be his successor. That his wife had borne him two daughters, but if any son should be hereafter born of her, he would be the heir. But if it was the will of God that she should bear no son, then his concubine's three sons, called Rajashekarappa, Sisushekarappa and Chandraskekarappa, should succeed to the throne. Since the above date, two more daughters, in all four, had been borne by MahadevaRani, who died in May 1807.
The Raja soon succumbed to his fear that if the succession devolved on the sons of another mother, they would create trouble to the four daughters of his lawful queen. So he decided that of the four daughters who are named Devammaji, Muddammaji, Rajammaji and Mahadevammaji, the eldest should be married, and whatever son she might have, he should be named Vira Rajendra, receive the Raja's seal and be the successor to the throne. If she should, however, have no son, the son of either of her younger sisters, according to seniority, should be the successor, and so long as the line of any of his four above named daughters continued, none of the heirs of the other mother should succeed to the throne; but, upon the family of his four daughters being extinct, the fittest of the above three sons or their posterity should succeed.
Vira Raja had his above intentions recorded in the Rajendraname and also requested the English Sirkar to be the guardian of his family, and see the execution of his will was attended to.
Source: Mysore and Coorg, Vol. III by Lewis Rice
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