Robert Sewell (4 June 1845 – 30 December 1925) worked in the civil service of the

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency or Madras Province, officially called the Presidency of Fort St. George until 1937, was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India and later the Dominion of India. At its greatest extent, the presidency i ...

during the period of colonial rule in India. He was Keeper of the Madras Record Office and was tasked with responsibility for documenting ancient inscriptions and remains in the region, As with other British administrators of his type at that period, his purpose was not scholarly but rather to bolster administrative control by constructing a history that placed British rule as a virtue and a necessity rather than something to be denigrated. Portrayal of historic factionalism among local figureheads and dominion by alien despots would, it was thought, enhance the perception that only the British could rescue the country from its past. Sewell's specialism was the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

, about which he authored ''A Forgotten Empire Vijayanagar: A Contribution to the History of India'' (1900). Burton Stein described this book as Sewell's Sewell undertook archaeological work, including at the

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

stupa In Buddhism, a stupa (, ) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and '' śarīra''—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and m ...

Amaravati Amaravati ( , Telugu language, Telugu: ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in Guntur district on the right bank of the Krishna River, southwest of Vijayawada. The city derives its name from the nearby his ...

, which had already been largely destroyed prior to his arrival. The site had previously been surveyed by

Colin Mackenzie Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1754–8 May 1821) was a Scottish army officer in the British East India Company who later became the first Surveyor General of India. He was a collector of antiquities and an orientalist and an indologist. He sur ...

and Walter Elliot. His record-keeping at that site in 1877 has been criticised for making an already-bad situation worse, adding to the problems that meant it was impossible to correlate the finds made. According to several Indian historians, Sewell chose Vijayanagar in the title of his work because he knew Kannada and Telugu groups would fight if he called it Karnataka, although he mentioned in the body of the text that the empire was called Karnataka. Sewell was guided by various native speakers of the

Kannada Kannada () is a 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, and is additionally a ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

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 ...

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 ...

and Telugu languages spoken there. Some of these aides went on to publish research of their own, such as S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar.

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* * 1845 births 1925 deaths People from the Madras Presidency Historians from British India Historians of India Indian Civil Service (British India) officers British Indologists {{India-historian-stub