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148.
JAINA ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE OF TAMILNADU
A good number of manuscripts bearing on the history and culture of south India were collected by Col. Colin Mackenzie between 1810-1815, when he was the Surveyor-General in Madras under the English East India company. Mackenzie was one of the East India Company's servants who 'did not tread the golden path to fortune as many of their counterparts made', but chose as his own, prompted by the love of learning, 'to discover the east'. Infact, he was one of the distinguished men of a brilliant galaxy of Indologists 'on whom the unknown Orient exercised a strange fascination'.
Historical manuscripts relating to South India in the Mackenzie collections have been edited by Dr. T.V. Mahalingam, and their summaries are given in a book form. The Manuscripts are in different languages of the region, namely, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada. They are divisible into different groups such as Local tracts (kaifiyats), Local history, Biographies, Puranic and legendary accounts of places and men, and Jaina literature etc. The accounts provided in the Mackenzie manuscripts, relating to Jaina religious history, are vitiated by references to legends. The manuscripts deal with a variety of themes. They enlist the Jaina centres of Tamilnadu, interesting accounts of the migrants, their influences on the land of the Tamils, the conflicts among the sects, their temples and monastic establishments. The Myths and legends as an extended part of oral traditions form the main content of these manuscripts. There may be reason for doubting the authenticity of the information contained in the Mackenzie manuscripts, 'for his collections are generally based on secondhand traditions and unverified reports'. Though the data given in the manuscripts are based on oral and secondary
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