Indian Antiquary Vol 06

SR No.: 032498
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 458
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 287

CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
AUGUST, 1877.]
of old inscriptions, abounding in mistakes. Although hardly worth noticing, I consider that all inaccuracy should be avoided, as far as possible, even in trivial matters, and therefore beg to offer the following corrections.
I made two collections of inscriptions, the first between 1826 and 1832 in the Dekhan, the second between 1848 and 1854 in the Northern Sirkârs. Each collection, when arranged and the most valuable ones selected, filled two folio volumes. Three copies were made of each: of the first or Dekhan set, one was presented to the Literary Society of Bombay, a second to the Literary Society of Madras, and the third to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain. Judging from inquiries recently made, the first appears to have been lost. The third is still preserved in Albemarle Street. The Telugu series was likewise transcribed three times, and copies presented to the Madras Society, the Royal Asiatic Society, and the India Office Library. A copy of the Dekhan series, which I had retained for my own use, has since been presented to the library of the Edinburgh University, and is now on loan with Mr. Fleet, who makes such good use of it.
My first essays in palæography were begun in 1826, with the aid of Mundargi Ranga Rao, a young Brahman attached to my office by the late St. John Thackeray when I was appointed Second Assistant to the Principal Collector and Political Agent of the Southern Marâțhâ Country, in 1822. He was the son of Bhima Râo, a mutálika of that Desii of Dambal who was hanged over his own gateway by the Honourable Colonel Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) in 1800, for firing on the British troops, at the same time that Rânîbednûr and Hali wer sacked and given to the sword for the resistance offered to the march of the force sent to quell the insurrection of Dhondi Walag. After the death of the Desâî, Bhima Rao, a man of enterprise and ability, taking advantage of the unsettled state of the country, collected troops in the Peshwa's name, and rose to considerable eminence. His career, ho vever, was cut short by Bâpt Gokhle, who was appointed Subhadâr of the Karnataka by Bâji Râo, and by whom he was seized and put to death about 1810-11, leaving an infant son, Ranga Rao, on whom Gokhle conferred the village of Mundargi with three others in jugir.
Mr. Thackeray, being desirous of enlisting men of rank into the public service, invited Ranga Rao to join his kachers, and, when I joined the district, attached him to me as office munshi. He was about my own age, a fine, high-spirited, intelligent
The Madra set is now in the hands of Mr. Oppert, the Secretary Madras Literary Society, but its existence was unknown when the Madras Government authorized Mr.
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young man. We became great friends. He was well mounted and fond of sport. We shot and hunted together, and he entered into all my pursuits. When I first turned my attention to the inscribed stones so frequent in the Southern Maratha Country, we tried hard to make out their contents, but at first without much success. He then remembered that a gomáshta in one of his inám villages had the reputation of being a very learned man. He was summoned, and we found him to be an invaluable assistant. By our united efforts we gradually mastered the archaic characters. I began to collect copies of sdsanams by means first of one, afterwards of two copyists in my own service, carefully trained to the work of transcription. The Yêur inscription let in a flood of light. We arranged our materials. Each inscription, of any value, by degrees fell into its place, and the result was embodied in the paper read to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1835, but which having been printed after my return to India, the following year, the proofs did not receive my corrections, and it thus contains several orthographical errors, especially of proper names.†
At Madras I held the subsidiary appointment of Canarese Translator to Government, which was almost a sinecure. The office establishment consisted of a munshi and an English writer. The former, Adaki Subha Rao, I soon found to be an invaluable assistant in my antiquarian pursuits. He was an accomplished Sanskrit, Canarese, and Telugu scholar, with a fair knowledge of Tamil. He had also a turn for archæological research, which only needed stimulus, and he soon entered zealously into my views. I engaged a Brahman named Raghappa as an itinerating copyist in my private service, with occasional assistance from one of Colonel Mackenzie's old collectors, named Baktavachaliya. The reduction of my materials and all my translations was made with the aid of Subha Rao. Three folio volumes of these trans
lates, with much other valuable MS. matter, drawings, &c., perished in a vessel laden with sugar, in which much of my baggage, books, &c. was despatched from Madras. The ship experienced a hurricane off the Isle of France, and shipped much salt water, melting the sugar, and getting at the tin-lined cases penetrated to their contents and entirely destroyed them.
Subha Rao died shortly before I was appointed to Council, and Raghappa some time afterwards.
The names mentioned by Mr. Boswell had nothing whatever to do with my antiquarian labours. They were public servants in the Commissioner's
Boswell to collect all the rough copies of my transcripts he could discover!
+ Conf. Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 348.-ED.