1 Kasu - Raghunatha Nayak

Raghunatha Nayak ruled Thanjavur from 1600 to 1634 and was among the most intellectually distinguished of the Nayak governors, himself a composer and poet in Telugu and Sanskrit. His court was a deliberate center of literary patronage, and the administrative apparatus — including the minting of copper kasu for local market exchange — reflected a reign more interested in cultural consolidation than military expansion. The Thanjavur Nayaks operated as nominally subordinate to the Vijayanagara empire, though by Raghunatha's time that relationship was largely ceremonial following Talikota in 1565.