writer and twenty-fifth Maharaja of Mysore (1919-1974)
Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (18 July 1919 – 23 September 1974), sometimes simply Jayachamaraja Wadiyar, was the twenty-fifth and last ruling Maharaja of Mysore, reigning from 1940 to 1950, who later served as the governor of Mysore until 1964 and as governor of Madras from 1964 to 1966. Wadiyar ascended the throne upon the sudden demise of his uncle Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV. His reign as King began in 1940 during the onset of World War II in Europe and concluded with his merging the Kingdom into the Dominion of India in 1947 but continued as maharaja until India's constitution into a republic in 1950. Kuvempu, his Kannada teacher and the vice-chancellor of Mysore University, remarked upon his ceding the kingdom: "Whereas kings have become so upon assuming thrones, he became a great king by renouncing one". C. Hayavadana Rao, a noted historian, referred to the maharaja in the preface of his unfinished book as a "supporter of every good cause aiming at the moral and material progress of the people".
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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You have referred in your address to what your generosity has termed my ‘sacrifice’. I do not look upon it as such. If destiny had decreed that over the past few centuries the progress and the prosperity of the people of this beloved State, should be in the hands of the Wadeyars of Mysore, then that same destiny now ordains that the time is ripe for the people, now grown to full political stature in a free democratic Republic, to rule themselves ...the rule of the Maharajas has indeed fulfilled its purpose, the purpose of making the people fit to rule themselves.
In succeeding to the throne of Mysore, I follow a great ruler who loved you all, and who won your love by his love of God, by his wisdom, his graciousness, his humility, his faithfulness to his duty and his Kingly greatness; ...called upon people to ‘consecrate themselves in the spirit of unity and self sacrifice.