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Juxe, 1875.]
SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
177
native hands, and were in many cases of doubt- in Madras in connexion with the Mackenzie ful accuracy, but the collection would have Collection. And in this Presidency Mr. Burgess been a most useful guide in prosecuting further has latterly been employed on the duty of inresearches of this kind. Recent inquiries, how- vestigating and reporting on the Archeological ever, after this collection have resulted in the Remains. discovery that the copies presented to the The Canarese Country, however, the richest Branch Societies have been entirely lost sight of all in inscriptions,-is still left to remain of and cannot now be traced ; and the copy the field of casual and intermittent private re. presented to the London Society is virtually search of necessarily a very imperfect kind. inaccessible in this country. All that now During a short tour through part of the Canaremains to the public of Sir W. Elliot's labours rese Country in the early part of last year, consists of his old Canarese Alphabet* and the Mr. Burgess took advantage of the opportunity Paper on Hindu Inscriptions + in which he thus afforded him, and prepared and has pub. summarizes the historical results of his re- lished & excellent facsimiles of over thirty of its searches; and these even are now out of print inscriptions. But his duties have now taken and very hard to be procured.
him to another part of the Presidency, and a Another very extensive MS. collection, com- long time must probably elapse before he will prising much information of a similar kind, visit the Canarese Country again. was made in Southern India by the late Colonel The only record of any Government action Mackenzie, and is still in existence at Madras. in respect of the inscriptions of the Canarese This collection, again, has never yet been made Country is to be found in a photographic colaccessible to the public; but there are hopes lection of about ninety inscriptions, on stonethat before very long a general summary of its tablets and copper-plates, at Chitrakaldarga, contents, and selected portions of it in detail, Balagamve, Harihar, and other places to the will be published by the gentleman I in whose south, made by Major Dixon, H. M.'s 22nd Regicharge it now is on behalf of Government. ment M.N.I., for the Government of Maisûr and
These are, I believe, the only large collections published by that Government in 1865.|| Not that have ever been made. Researches by other long ago, it is true, it was in contemplation by inquirers have been made public, but they are the Bombay Government to employ an officer mostly of a detached kind, and, together with on the special duty of preparing for publication the reports on the contents of the Mackenzie a reliable collection of Canarese inscriptions ; Collection that have been issued, are scattered but,-on the ground that, as the basis of the work over the pages of the journals of literary was to have been the Elliot Collection, the dissocieties in such a way as to be accessible, and appearance of that collection renders it impossifrequently to be known, only to those who have ble for anything further to be done,--the project the fortune to live in the neighbourhood of large seems to have been abandoned, for the present libraries.
at all events. In other parts of the empire activity is being | To Major Dixon's collection mentioned above displayed by Government in respect of the we have to add a series of about sixty photopreservation and publication of ancient remains graphic copies of inscriptions, from negatives and records. In the north of India there is an taken by the late Dr. Pigou, Bo.M.S., and Col. Archeological Department which publishes, at Biggs, R.A., and edited in 1866 by Mr. Hope, the same time with the other results of its in- Bo.C.S., for and at the cost of the Committee quiries, all inscriptions that are met with. In of Architectural Antiquities of Western India. Ceylon an Oriental scholar has recently been A synopsis of the contents of this work, by deputed by the Government to examine, copy, the late Dr. Bhâu Daji, is to be found at pp. and publish the rock inscriptions. As indicated 314-933 of No. xxvii. vol. IX. of the Journal above, another Oriental scholar is now at work of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic
• Pablished at Bombay in 1833.
† Published originally in No. VII. of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and reprinted, with the corrections and emendations of the author, in vol. VII. of the Ma. dras Journal of Literature and Science.
Dr. Oppert.
Report of the First Season's Operations of the Ar. cheological Survey of W. India, in the Belgaum and Koladji Districts (India Office, 1874).
| Conf. Ind. Ant., vol. II. p. 184.
