Ramayanam Sarveswara Sastry (1889 – 1 October 1962) was a stage actor. He was born in Bheemasingi village in

Vizianagaram district Vizianagaram district is one of the six districts in the Uttarandhra region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with its headquarters located at Vizianagaram. The district was once the part of ancient Ka ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. His parents were Laxminarasimha Sastry, a pundit known as "Abhinava Bheemakavi" and Venkata Subbamma. His ancestors used to recite Hindu epic

Ramayanam The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

in the village regularly which garnered their family the name of Ramayanam. Sastry completed his schooling in Rippon High School at Vizianagaram. He had a passion of playing dramas since childhood, hence, joined Vizianagram Amateur Theatrical Society in 1910 and played different roles till 1919. Later, he joined the Vijayarama Dramatic Academy of Vizianagaram Kingdom and was a part of it until, 1935. He also worked as a teacher in Branch College till 1947. He played many characters on stage including: Rajasimha in ''Rasaputra Vijayam'', Ramadas in ''Ramadasu'', Srikrishna in ''Prasanna Yadavam'', ''Pandavodyogam'' and ''Padmavyooham'', Gayudu in ''Gayopakhyanam'', Rustum in ''Vijayanagara Samrajya Patanam'',

Harischandra Harishchandra () is a legendary king of the Solar dynasty, who appears in several legends in texts such as the '' Aitareya Brahmana'', ''Mahabharata'', the ''Markandeya Purana'', and the ''Devi Bhagavata Purana''. The most famous of these stori ...

in ''Harischandra'',

Arjuna Arjuna (, , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, �ɾd͡ʒun̪ə is one of the central characters of the ancient Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. He is the third of the five Pandava brothers, and is widely regarded as the most important and renowned among them. ...

in ''Krishna Rayabaram'',

Nala Nala () is a legendary king of ancient Nishadha kingdom and the central protagonist of the '' Nalopakhyana'', a sub-narrative within the Indian epic '' Mahabharata'', found in its third book, '' Vana Parva'' (Book of the Forest). He is renown ...

in ''Chitra Naleeyam'', Bilvamangal in ''Chintamani'' and

Hiranyakashipu Hiranyakashipu (, ), also known as Hiranyakashyap, was a daitya king of the asuras in the Puranas. In Hinduism, Hiranyakashipu's younger brother, Hiranyaksha, was slain by the Varaha (boar) avatar of Vishnu. Angered by this, Hiranyakashipu ...

. He has toured

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

and Machilipatnam in 1928 and portrayed many Ramadasu and Harischandra characters. He got about 20 medals from the different

Zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

s.Ramayanam Sarveswara Sastry, Nataratnalu, Mikkilineni Radhakrishna Murthy, Sitaratnam Granthamala, Vijayawada, 2002, pp: 92-4. He died on 1 October 1962 at

Anakapalli Anakapalli (, ) is a suburb of Visakhapatnam city, located within the jurisdiction of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation. It contains India's second largest jaggery market. History The town was ruled by the Kalinga Empir ...

References

Indian male stage actors People from Vizianagaram district 1889 births 1962 deaths Male actors from Andhra Pradesh 20th-century Indian male actors {{India-stage-actor-stub