''Epigraphia Carnatica'' is a set of books on

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

of the Old Mysore region of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, compiled by Benjamin Lewis Rice, the Director of the Mysore Archaeological Department. Over a period of about ten years between 1894 and 1905, Rice published the books in a set of twelve volumes. The books contain the study of about 9,000 inscriptions from lithic surfaces and copper plates, which were found in the region. Apart from the original inscription, an English translation and a Roman transliteration are also provided.

History

Benjamin Lewis Rice was born in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

in 1837. His father was a Christian

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

and head of the Bangalore

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. After completing his education in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, Rice returned to serve as the principal of Central School in Bangalore. He was also appointed as a secretary of the education commission. When he toured the countryside as an education inspector, he came across various inscriptions. He was interested in epigraphy and he took the help of his assistants to edit, translate and transliterate about 9,000 inscriptions. In 1886, when the British made him the head of the Department of Archaeology, he started work towards publishing his epigraphical study and brought out a series of twelve volumes entitled ''Epigraphia Carnatica''. Rice also wrote a book called ''The History of Mysore and Coorg from Inscriptions'' which is based on ''Epigraphia Carnatica''.

Compilation

''Epigraphia Carnatica'' contains a study of inscriptions from AD 3rd century until 19th century. These inscriptions belonged to different dynasties that ruled this region such as

Chola The Chola Empire, which is often referred to as the Imperial Cholas, was a medieval thalassocratic empire based in southern India that was ruled by the Chola dynasty, and comprised overseas dominions, protectorates and spheres of influence ...

s, Kadambas,

Western Chalukya The Western Chalukya Empire ( ) ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannada dynasty is sometimes called the ''Kalyani Chalukya'' after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan i ...

Hoysala The Hoysala Kingdom was a kingdom originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka, India, Karnataka, parts of Tamilnadu and South-Western Telangana between the 11th and the 14th centuries Common Era, CE. The c ...

s, Vijayanagar kings,

Hyder Ali Hyder Ali (''Haidar'alī''; ; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's ...

and his son

Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (, , ''Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu''; 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799) commonly referred to as Sher-e-Mysore or "Tiger of Mysore", was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery ...

, and the Mysore

Wodeyar The Wadiyar dynasty,() also referred to as the Wadiyars of Mysore (also spelt Wodeyer, Odeyer, and Wadeyar), is a late-medieval Indian royal family of former maharajas of Mysore from the Urs clan originally based in Mysore city. The Wadiya ...

s. The inscriptions found were mainly written in

Kannada language Kannada () is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, an ...

, but some have been found to be written in languages like

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Publishing

After the set of twelve volumes had been published by Rice, R. Narsimhachar, who succeeded Rice as the head of the archaeological department, found another 4,000 inscriptions. M.H. Krishna, after his excavations at

Chandravalli Chandravalli is an archaeological site located in the Chitradurga district of the state of Karnataka, India. The region is a valley formed by three hills, Chitradurga, Kirabanakallu and Jolagudda.Amalananda Ghosh (1990), p97 It is a semi-arid r ...

and Brahmagiri, discovered 2,000 inscriptions and published these discoveries as volumes 13, 14 and 15 of ''Epigraphia Carnatica''. By 1950 the volumes were out of print, and so in 1972 the Department of Kannada at Mysore University undertook the task of reprinting the volumes, but could only bring out six volumes. The Southern Regional Centre of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) under the chairmanship of Professor S. Settar wanted to create a digitized version of the volumes. Settar donated his personal copies of ''Epigraphia Carnatica'', which were scanned and released as a CD-ROM in 2005.

Volumes

In the preface of each volume is found a description about the publication and its contents, persons involved, and/or struggles, some of which owing to a change of staff, a post-war retrenchment, etc. From 1886 to 1905 9 years B. Lewis Rice published the first twelve volumes in multiple parts as fourteen books, followed by a revision of ''Vol. I'' in 1914 with 75 additional inscriptions, bringing to light nearly 5,000 inscriptions of the 8,869 he collected over the course of 22 years. In 1923, R. Narasimhachar published a revised and enlarged edition of Rice's ''Vol. II'', which contains 356 new inscriptions (500 total) with translations ranging from AD 600 to 1889. Rice's intention was to publish ''Vol. XIII'' as an index to his publications, so in 1934, Dr. M. H. Krishna, with the help of K. Rama Rao, M. C. Srinivasa Iyengar, and R. Narasimhachar, published part one of ''Vol. XIII: General Index'', covering letters 'A' to 'K' of Rice's 1st editions. In 1943, Dr. M. H. Krishna published a ''Vol. XIV'' supplement for Rice's ''Vol. V'', which contains texts and translations of about 750 inscriptions, new and revised, collected between 1906 and 1914 in the old Mysore District which included the present Mandya District. In 1955, Prof. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri published a ''Vol. XVI'' supplement for Rice's ''Vol. XII'', which contains new inscriptions collected by Mr. R. Narasimhachar between 1906 and 1922 in the Tumkur District and has transliteration of about 270 inscriptions. In 1965, Dr. M. Seshadri published a ''Vol. XVII'' supplement for Rice's ''Vol. X''. In 1970, he also published a ''Vol. XVIII'' supplement, which revised and added a few new additions to Rice's ''Vol. VII'' and ''Vol. VIII''. In 1972, a 3rd revised edition to Rice's ''Vol. I, 2nd ed.'' was published, which contains 32 new inscriptions. In 1987, R. Narasimhachar published the second part of ''Vol. XIII: General Index'', covering letters 'L' to 'Z' of the first twelve volumes. Volumes 1 to 12: * :

Coorg Kodagu district () (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State ...

Inscriptions. (Rice, 1886). (Rice, 1914, 2nd ed.). (1972, 3rd ed.). * : Inscriptions at Sravana Belgola. (Rice, 1889). (Narasimhachar, 1923, 2nd ed.). * : Inscriptions in the Mysore District, Part I. (Rice, 1894). * : Inscriptions in the Mysore District, Part II. (Rice, 1898). * : Inscriptions in the

Hassan District Hassan is one of the districts of Karnataka, 31 districts of Karnataka, India. The district headquarter is Hassan, Karnataka, Hassan. It was part of ''Manjarabad Faujdari'' between 1832-81 (Mysore Commission, Commissioner's Rule of Mysore). In ...

, Part I. (Rice, 1902). * : Inscriptions in the

, Part II. (Rice, 1902). * : Inscriptions in the Kadur District. (Rice, 1901). * : Inscriptions in the

Shimoga District Shimoga district, officially known as Shivamogga district, is a Districts of India, district in the Karnataka state of India. A major part of Shimoga district lies in the Malnad region or the Western Ghats, Sahyadri. Shimoga city is its adminis ...

, Part I. (Rice, 1902). * : Inscriptions in the

, Part II. (Rice, 1904). * : Inscriptions in the

Bangalore District Bengaluru District was a district in the state of Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with ...

. (Rice, 1905). * : Inscriptions in the

Kolar District Kolar district () is a district in the state of Karnataka, India. Kolar, Karnataka, Kolar (ಕೋಲಾರ) is the district headquarters. Located in southern Karnataka, it is the state's easternmost district. The district is surrounded by the ...

. (Rice, 1905). * : Inscriptions in the

, Part II. (Rice, 1905). * : Inscriptions in the Chitaldroog District. (Rice, 1903). * : Inscriptions in the

Tumkur District Tumakuru district is an List of districts of Karnataka, administrative district in the state of Karnataka in India. It is the second largest district in Karnataka by land area with an area of 10,598 km2, and fourth largest by Population. It is ...

. (Rice, 1904). Volumes 13 to 19: * : General Index, Part I –K for Vols. I–XII, 1st ed. (Krishna, 1934). * : General Index, Part II –Z for Vols. I–XII, 1st ed. (Narasimhachar, 1987). * : Supplementary Inscriptions in the

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

and

Mandya Mandya is a city in the state of Karnataka. It is the headquarter of Mandya district, Sugar factories contribute to the major economic output. It is also called Sugar City (Kannada: ''Sakkare Nagara'') because sugarcane is a major crop grown ...

Districts. (Krishna, 1943). * : Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. V (Krishna, 1943). * : Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. XII (Sastri, 1955). * : Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. X (Seshadri, 1965). * : Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ols. VII and VIII (Seshadri, 1970). * Vol. ?: Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. IX (Planned).

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{ Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1886 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. I:

Inscriptions , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1914 , orig-year=1st ed. 1886 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. I:

Inscriptions , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , edition=2nd , location=Madras , publisher=Government Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1972 , orig-year=1st ed. 1886 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. I: Coorg District , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , edition=3rd , location=Manasa Gangotri , publisher=Mysore University Printing Press , pages=11–14 (Preface) {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1889 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. II: Inscriptions at Sravana Belgola, a chief seat of the Jains , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Narasimhachar , author-first=R. , year=1923 , orig-year=1st ed. 1889 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. II: Inscriptions at Sravana Belgola , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , edition=2nd , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , pages=i-iii (Preface) {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1894 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. III: Inscriptions in the Mysore District, Part I , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1898 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. IV: Inscriptions in the Mysore District, Part II , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1902 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. V: Inscriptions in the

, Part I , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mangalore , publisher=Basel Mission Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1902 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. V: Inscriptions in the

, Part II , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mangalore , publisher=Basel Mission Press {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1901 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. VI: Inscriptions in the Kadur District , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1902 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. VII: Inscriptions in the

, Part I , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1904 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. VIII: Inscriptions in the

, Part II , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1905 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. IX: Inscriptions in the

, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1905 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. X: Inscriptions in the

, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mangalore , publisher=Basel Mission Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1905 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. X: Inscriptions in the

, Part II , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1903 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XI: Inscriptions in the Chitaldroog District , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Rice , author-first=B. Lewis , author-link=B. Lewis Rice , year=1904 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XII: Inscriptions in the

, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Krishna , author-first=Dr. M. H. , author-link=M. H. Krishna , year=1934 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XIII: General Index, Part I –K for Vols. I–XII, 1st ed., series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Bangalore , publisher=Government Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Narasimhachar , author-first=R. , year=1987 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XIII: General Index, Part II –Z for Vols. I–XII, 1st ed., series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , edition=Rev. , location=Bangalore , publisher=Mysore Government Central Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Krishna , author-first=Dr. M. H. , author-link=M. H. Krishna , year=1943 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XIV: Supplementary Inscriptions in the Mysore and Mandya Districts , series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mysore , publisher=Government Branch Press , pages=1–2 (Preface) {{Cite book , author-last=Krishna , author-first=Dr. M. H. , author-link=M. H. Krishna , year=1943 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XV: Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. V, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mysore , publisher=Government Branch Press , pages=1–2 (Preface) {{Cite book , author-last=Sastri , author-first=Prof. K. A. Nilakanta , author-link=K. A. Nilakanta Sastri , year=1955 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XVI: Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. XII, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mysore , publisher=Government Branch Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Seshadri , author-first=Dr. M , year=1965 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XVII: Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ol. X, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mysore , publisher=Government Text Book Press , page=Preface {{Cite book , author-last=Seshadri , author-first=Dr. M , year=1970 , title=Epigraphia Carnatica. Vol. XVII: Supplementary Inscriptions in the

ols. VII and VIII, series=Mysore Archaeology Survey , location=Mysore , publisher=Government Text Book Press , page=Preface

External links

Scanned Epigraphia Carnatica volumes available at the Internet Archive
Full scans from Canadian libraries of volumes 1-13.1, 14–16.
Epigraphia Carnatica
online copy of the 1898 edition, volume II. (archive.org)
Epigrāphiya Karnāṭaka (University of Tuebingen)
Full scans of volumes 1-12, 15–17. History of Karnataka Indian inscriptions Indian non-fiction books Inscriptions Kannada inscriptions