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Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History
Precolonial Intellectuals and the Production of Colonial Knowledge

Author(s): Phillip B. Wagoner
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 783-814
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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PrecolonialIntellectualsand the
Productionof Colonial Knowledge
PHILLIP B. WAGONER
WesleyanUniversity
Recent years have seen the emergence of a lively debate over the nature of
"colonialknowledge"-those forms andbodies of knowledge thatenabledEu-
ropeancolonizers to achieve dominationover their colonized subjects around
the globe. Lying at the heartof the debate are two opposing evaluationsof the
role played by colonized subjectsin the productionof colonial knowledge. One
position holds that the role of the colonized was negligible-at most, permit-
ting some of them to serve as passive informants,providingraw informationto
the active Europeancolonizers who producedthe new knowledge by imposing
importedmodes of knowing upon the raw dataof local society. In contrast,the
other holds that indigenous intellectuals in reality contributedactively to the
process, and that colonial knowledge was thus produced through a complex
form of collaboration between colonizers and colonized, and an attendant
process of epistemic confrontationand adjustmentbetween Europeanand in-
digenous knowledge systems. Although this debate has focused primarilyon
one colonial context-that of BritishIndia-it has importantramificationsfor
the broaderhistory of colonialism, and is complementedby contributionsre-
lating to other areasof Europeancolonialism (Cooperand Stoler 1997:11-18).
The first position-which, at the risk of oversimplification,I will referto as
postcolonialist-is well known throughthe influentialworks of EdwardSaid
(1978), RonaldInden(1986, 1990) BernardCohn (1987, 1996), Nicholas Dirks
(1989, 1993, 2001), GauriViswanathan(1990), and Thomas Metcalf (1994),
among others. To these scholars we owe the rich development of the insight,
ultimately deriving from Gramsci and Foucault, that Europeancolonial con-
quest was dependentnot just upon superiormilitary,political, and economic
power, but also upon the power of knowledge-or "culturaltechnologies of
rule"in Dirks' formulation(2001:9). These scholarshave shown how a whole
This essay has benefited greatly from discussions with Richard Eaton, Peter Gottschalk, Sumit
Guha,BrianHatcher,Lisa Mitchell, Vijay Pinch, Sheldon Pollock, Peter Schmitthenner,and Cyn-
thia Talbot,as well as from the comments and suggestions of four anonymousreadersand CSSH
editor Thomas Trautmann,to all of whom I am much indebted. Two periods of research in the
Mackenzie collections at the British Librarywere made possible by a USDE Fulbright-HaysFac-
ulty ResearchFellowship (1999-2000) and by a ProjectGrantfrom Wesleyan University (2001).
0010-4175/03/783-814 $9.50 ? 2003 Societyfor ComparativeStudyof SocietyandHistory
783

784 PHILLIP B. WAGONER
host of colonial forms of knowledge-ranging from more clearly administra-

tive forms like the census to seemingly more "pure"forms of inquirylike his-
tory and ethnology-have not simply describedan objective reality,butrather,
have called thatreality into being in ways that served the interestsof the colo-
nial state. They have also highlighted the self-perpetuating,reciprocalrela-
tionshipbetween colonial knowledge and conquest:if knowledge enablescon-
quest, this in turnenables the productionof furtherknowledge, leadingto more
effective consolidationof political power.Althoughthis colonial knowledge is
largely producedin the colony, it is not of the colony: rather,it comes about
throughthe conjunction of pre-defined,importedEuropeanforms of knowl-
edge-the "investigativemodalities"of Cohn (1996:5 ff.)-with the raw data
providedby the indigenous social and culturalforms of the colonized society.
In otherwords, colonial knowledge is producedby the active agents of the col-
onizing society, operatingupon the passive patientsof the colonized. Because
of the attendantloss of agency on the part of the colonized, and because in-
digenous categories and forms of thoughtarenotjust ignored,but forciblydis-
placed by the importedepistemes of the colonizers, the productionof colonial
knowledge thus representsa form of "epistemologicalviolence" waged by the
colonial state against its colonized subjects (Dirks in Cohn 1996:xii). An im-
portantcorollaryfollowing from this position is that colonialism introducesa
profoundepistemic disjuncture,a rupturein the historicalfabricof the society
subjected to colonialism. There can be no significant continuities across the
greatrift generatedby colonial knowledge, for all indigenousforms of knowl-
edge and bodies of culturalpractice are effectively supercededand displaced
throughthe imposition of new, importedepistemes.
A second position, largely conceived as a revisionist critique of this post-
colonialist view, has emerged more recently through the writings of Eugene
Irschick (1994), C. A. Bayly (1996), Thomas R. Trautmann(1999a, 1999b),
William R. Pinch (1999), RichardM. Eaton (2000), NorbertPeabody (2001),
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi(2001), and others. Most of these contributions
would appearto share the point of departureof the establishedpostcolonialist
position-namely, that knowledge is power and that colonial knowledge did
play a fundamentalrole in the consolidationof colonial rule. They departfrom
the postcolonialists,however,in questioningthe assumptionthatthe colonized
were mere passive bystandersto the process, and in pointing to significantel-
ements of continuity, epistemic and otherwise, running across the presumed
colonial divide. In particular,some of these works have called attentionto the
active role of the colonized in producingcolonial knowledge.Whereasthe post-
colonialists have tendedto see native scholarsmerely as "informants,"provid-
ing raw data with which active Europeansproducedcolonial knowledge, the
"collaborationists"have insteadviewed these indigenousintellectualsas active
partnersin the process, bringingtheir own forms of knowledge and epistemic
regimes to the dialogue.Thus, in a recentissue of thisjournal,NorbertPeabody

INTELLECTUALS AND THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE 785
has suggestedthatthe position arguedby ArjunAppadurai--namely,thatcaste-

wise censuses represent a colonial innovation introduced into India by the
British, following upon the prior development of an "enumerativehabit" in
the domain of British land surveys (see Appadurai1993)-should be "turned
on its head" (Peabody 2001:823). Peabody demonstratesthat to the contrary,
enumerationby caste in early colonial censuses was conceptually dependent
on a familiaritywith indigenous precolonial registers of households, such as
MunhataNainsi's "Account of the Districts of Marwar"(producedbetween
1658 and 1664), which in fact had alreadyadopteda caste-basedform of clas-
sification.Indeed,the earliestBritishcensuses reveal thatcolonial officials had
not originally been interestedin classifying the populationsaccordingto fine-
grainedcaste distinctions. Rather,Peabody suggests that "this style of classi-
fying the populationappearsto have crept into the colonial census in a some-
what more backhandedmannerowing to the reliance of British administrators
on native informantsand petty officials who were familiar with precolonial
'householdlists' thathad long been caste-sensitive .. ." (2001:841). Peabody's
analysis also suggests that what these indigenous collaboratorschose to con-
tribute-or to withhold-was determinedby a desire to "furthertheir own lo-
cally determinedagendas"(2001:841), thus pointing to the inadequacyof the
starklydichotomizedview of the postcolonialists,which reduces all colonizers
to the role of agents and all colonized to the statusof patients.
If indeed colonial knowledge was formed through such a process of intel-
lectual "dialogue"or "conversation"(the termsareIrschick'sandTrautmann's,
respectively), one would expect to find the impress of indigenous conceptual
categories and even forms of thought on the final form and content of the re-
sultantknowledge. This is precisely what we find in the case of the concept of
the Dravidianlanguage family, as Trautmannhas demonstratedin persuasive
detail (1999a and 1999b). Although the Dravidianconcept is largely taken for
grantedtoday-it is the generally acceptedmeans of accountingfor linguistic
similaritiesbetween the four majorlanguages of the southIndianpeninsula,as
well as numeroustriballanguages dispersedthroughoutotherpartsof the sub-
continent-at the time of its formulationin early nineteenth-centuryMadras,
the concept was "revolutionaryand unprecedented,both for EuropeansandIn-
dians."It was "theproductof a new way of looking at things that came about
throughthe interactionof Europeanand Indian mental frames under colonial
conditions,creatingsomethingthatwent beyondthe limits of each"(1999b:51).
Accordingto Trautmann'sanalysis, the Europeanmentalframecontributedthe
concept of ramifyingfamilies of languages,based on the notion of a "segmen-
tary,branchingTree of Nations ... whose origin was the narrativeof Noah's
descendentsin the Book of Genesis" (1999b:44); while the Indianframe con-
tributedthe Sanskriticdiscipline of vydkarana("linguisticanalysis"), accord-
ing to which any languagecould be reducedto two elements: a comprehensive
list of roots on the one hand, and a series of concise transformationalrules, on

the other, that "like a computerprogramapplied to an input streamof data,

would generatethe entire lexicon . .. by applicationto the list of roots"(45).
These two mental frames were broughttogetherthroughthe colonial relation,
as Britishscholar-administrators employed learnedbrahminsand otherpandits
to teach them the vernacularlanguages employed in the peninsula.Although
the Britishundeniablyheld the upperhandin this relationshipand set the agen-
da for the conversation,the colonial knowledge thus producedwould not have
taken the form it did, had it not been for the fact that the Indianintellectuals
provided not merely raw data, but a key analyticalframeworkthat led to the
formulationof the new form of knowledge. Moreover, neither the fact that
British colonizers had initiatedand directedthe dialogue, nor their subsequent
employmentof the Dravidianhypothesisto furthertheircolonial agenda,in any
way preventedlatermembersof the colonized society fromemployingthe same
knowledge to furthera different,nationalistagenda of their own (Trautmann
1999b:52-54).
HISTORICAL EPIGRAPHY AS A FORM OF COLONIAL KNOWLEDGE
The present essay attemptsto furtherdevelop this "collaborationist"model,

through a case-study of one category of colonial knowledge-historical epi-
graphy-that has been almost totally overlooked to date. Although in many
other areas of the world the study of inscriptionsserves merely as the hand-
maidenof history,in the studyof India'spast,epigraphyholds a positionof cen-
tral importance.The natureof ancient and medieval culturalpracticesleading
to the productionof epigraphictexts, the documentaryfunctionsservedby such
inscriptions,their sheer numbers,and the comparativemeagernessof otherin-
digenous historiographictraditionsprior to the beginning of the second mil-
lennium, are all factors which have conspiredto put epigraphyat the centerof
the study of Indian history.Indeed, according to the estimate of D. C. Sircar,
one of the leading epigraphistsof the twentiethcentury,somethingon the or-
der of 80 percentof what we know aboutthe basic frameworkof Indianhisto-
ry before 1000 A.D. is derivedentirely from inscriptionalsources (Sircar,cited
in Salomon 1998:3).2Withoutthem, we would have only the shakiestknowl-
edge of chronology,historicalgeography,the actualboundariesof regions and
territories,the changingnatureof languageuse, andmost formsof political, so-
cial, and economic life as they were actually lived. To borrowa metaphorfrom
the ubiquitousbenedictoryverse with which so many of these recordsbegin,
epigraphyis trulythe "centralpillar"upon which the entireedifice of precolo-
nial Indianhistory rests.3
1 Whatwouldseemto bethesoleexceptionis DaudAli'sbriefappendix,on "Archaeology and

theHistoryof India,"to his essay"RoyalEulogyas WorldHistory:Rethinking In-
Copper-plate
scriptionsin ColaIndia"(2000:225-29).Althoughthisappendixfocusesmorebroadlyon archae-
ologyas a formof colonialknowledge,it brieflydiscussesepigraphy
withinthiscontext.
2 Theestimateis D. C. Sircar's,
as citedby RichardSalomon(1998:3).
3 Theverseis thefamousbenediction borrowedfromtheopeningof Bhna'sHarsacarita,prais-

While the inscriptionsthemselves were presentand availablelong before the

advent of Europeancolonialism, they had not been systematicallyused as an
avenue for understandingthe past by precolonial Indians.4This historical use
of inscriptionswas only a productof the colonial encounter,as British admin-
istrators,scholars, and intellectuals strove to understandthe pasts of the terri-
tories they were acquiring.This development has been described in detail by
RichardSalomon, in terms of a model which has the British bringing the dis-
cipline of epigraphy to India, essentially as a pre-defined set of theories and
practicesderived from the study of the classical Europeanpast, and applyingit
to the new body of datarepresentedby the inscribedtexts found in the new en-
vironment.The only problemsthey faced in this endeavorwere, first, that the
alien languages used in these texts had to be learned,and second, that the un-
recognizableformsof theirarchaicscriptshadto be deciphered,so thatthe texts
themselves could be read.The first difficulty was overcome readily enough by
employing native Indianassistantsto teach the relevantclassical and vernacu-
lar languages to the Europeanscholars;the second was over time surmounted
by the collective efforts of the Europeansthemselves, by applyingpaleograph-
ic principles (putativelyanotherEuropeanimport).This method allowed them
to work backward step by step from the scripts currentlyemployed, to the
slightly earlierforms used in older Sanskritmanuscripts,andthen throughpro-
gressively older epigraphicscripts,all the way back to the ancientBrahmiand
Kharoshthialphabetsthat had been used in the third century B.C.(Salomon
1998:199-217).
The hub of all this epigraphicactivity describedby Salomon was late eigh-
teenth- and early nineteenth-centuryCalcutta, the heart of the Bengal Presi-
dency and center of the Britishcolonial governmentin India.Orientalistschol-
arshipin Calcutta was institutionalizedin a triad of overlappinginstitutions,
which often sharedthe same personnel,both BritishandIndian.These were the
College of Fort William (foundedin 1800 as a center for instructionin Indian
languagesfor young Britishcivil servants),the Asiatic Society of Bengal, with
its influentialjournalAsiatic Researches, and, of course, the governmentitself
(Trautmann1999b:37).Epigraphicwork was carriedout by a numberof major
Calcuttaorientalists,includingthe likes of CharlesWilkins (1749-1836), Hen-
ry Colebrooke (1765-1837), and William Jones (1746-1794).5 Although it is
acknowledgedthat their Indian assistantsplayed an importantrole in this de-
ing Siva in the form of the "centralpillar"(maila-stamnbha) upon which rests the cosmic edifice of
the three-folduniverse: "Adorationto Sambhu [=Siva], who is the main pillar in the building of
the city of the three worlds-beautiful with the moon hung on him like a white royal chowrie, as
it kisses his lofty brow"(Cowell and Thomas 1968:1).
4 There is some indicationthat more recent inscriptionswere appealedto as documentaryevi-
dence in supportof propertyclaims, but more ancientinscriptionswere not even readablebecause
the forms of the various scripts used had changed so significantly in the interveningperiod (Sa-
lomon 1998:199).
5 For a detailed review of their epigraphic activities, see the survey by Salomon (1998:199-
203).

velopmentof epigraphy,it is nonethelessunderstoodto have been largelya sec-

ondaryone-whether they were serving as languageteachersandlinguisticin-
formants,or as understudiesto the active Europeans,learningto applythe new,
importedepigraphicmethodsin the service of their colonial masters.6
COL. COLIN MACKENZIE AND COLONIAL EPIGRAPHY IN MADRAS
Such a scenariomay very well have been truefor Calcutta,but thingswerequite

differentin the MadrasPresidencyto the south.The undeniableimportanceof
the early Calcuttaepigraphers,especially for theirleading role in the decipher-
ment of the most ancient Indianscripts,has hinderedrecognitionof a simulta-
neous andequallyvital traditionof epigraphicstudylocated in the MadrasPres-
idency.In certainrespects,as I shall arguebelow, this Madrasschool of colonial
epigraphywould ultimatelyexercise an even greaterimpact on the subsequent
developmentof the discipline, particularlywith respect to how it was eventu-
ally institutionalizedwithintheArchaeologicalSurveyof India(founded1861).
While the Calcuttaschool is embodied in the work of many individualschol-
ars, the primarylocus of the early Madrasschool was restrictedlargelyto a sin-
gle collaborativeprojectundertakenby the well-known British surveyor,Col.
Colin Mackenzie(1753-1821) togetherwith a teamof some twentyIndian"as-
sistants."
The fact thatmodernscholarshiphas thus far failed to recognize the contri-
butionsof Mackenzie'sprojectis in keeping with the largertendencyto assume
the primacy of Bengal as a center for Orientalistscholarship in nineteenth-
centuryIndia.7Recently,however,it has been suggestedthatthe particularcon-
cerns and institutionsof the Bengal school were not reproducedin otherparts
of the subcontinent,and that Madras,in particular,was the home of a distinct
school of Orientalistscholarshipthat differed in decisive ways from its better
known Calcuttacounterpart.Credit for recognizing a "Madrasschool of Ori-
entalism"goes to Trautmann,whose studiesof the role of the Madrasschool in
the formationof the Dravidianconcept have been mentioned above (1999a;
1999b). Although Trautmannhas called attentionto the Madras school's de-
pendence on the Calcutta school in its institutional embodiment (thus, the
College of FortWilliam was replicatedin Madras'sCollege of FortSt. George,
and the Asiatic Society of Bengal was reproducedin the LiterarySociety of
Madras),he stresses that the Madras school was in competition with its Cal-
cutta counterpart,as it "soughtto assert its authorityover the Orientaliststudy
of the Indian South, against the Orientalistestablishmentof Calcuttaand the
Asiatic Society" (1999a:59). Thus, the "discovery"of a Dravidianfamily by
6 As, for
example, in the case of some of Jones's learnedpandits, including RadhdkantaTarka-
vdgisa and RamalocanaPandit,both of whom contributedtheir own epigraphicarticlesto Asiatic
Researches.See Salomon 1998:202, and, on Rddhakdnta,Rocher 1989 and 1993.
7 On various aspects of the "Bengal School" and its history see the works of Kopf (1969), Ke-
jariwal (1988), Rocher (1989 and 1993), and Hatcher(1996).

FrancisWhyte Ellis and his Indiancollaboratorswent against the official doc-

trine of the Calcuttaschool, which held that "all the languages of India, north
and south.. . were descendantsof Sanskrit"(Trautmann1999a:58).8
Trautmann'snotion of a "Madrasschool" provides a productiveanalytical
frameworkfor approachingMackenzie's projectand understandingits unique
contributionsto the emergentfield of historicalepigraphy.Mackenziewas first
andforemosta cartographer,whose influentialSurveyof Mysore (1800-1810),
carried out at the behest of the colonial government after the defeat of the
Mysore rulerTipu Sultan and the annexationof his territories,has been called
"the first completely organized survey expedition to take the field in India"
(Phillimore 1950:93).9 Mackenzie's widespreadrecognition as a surveyorled
to his being appointedas the first SurveyorGeneralof India, a post which he
held from 1815 until his death in 1821. To historians, however, he is better
known for the vast archive of inscriptions,"local histories,"and other manu-
scriptmaterialsthathe collected duringthe course of his cartographicsurveys
in southernIndia. It is importantto recognize, however, that these two activi-
ties of Mackenzie's-mapmaking and collecting-were integralcomponents
of a single, governmentallysponsoredcolonial project.Thus, in the official or-
ders commissioning Mackenzie to undertakehis Survey of Mysore, Richard
Wellesley, the GovernorGeneralof Madras,explicitly stipulatedthat the sur-
vey should not be confined merely to militaryand geographicalmapping,but
should incorporatealso a "statistical account of the whole country" which
would contributedirectlyto the successful administrationof the new provinces:
[S]ucha surveyis in the firstplaceabsolutelynecessaryto the accuratesettlementof
ourfrontier;it willalsotendto augmentourknowledgeof IndianGeography, andto pro-
duceimmediateandimportant andconductingourgovernment
benefitsin establishing
in theconquered provinces,forI proposethatthe attentionof the Surveyorshouldnot
be confinedto meremilitaryorGeographical butthathis enquiriesshould
information,
be extendedto a statistical account of the whole country,and that he should be supplied
with the best means in our power to assist him (quotedin Phillimore 1950:91; my em-
phasis).
8 In a similar vein, Peter Schmitthennerhas identified differencesrelatingto sponsorship,pro-

fessional identity,and linguistic orientationthat set MadrasOrientalismapartfrom similar schol-
arshipin Bengal. Whereas Orientalistscholarshipin Bengal received official governmentpatron-
age, was carried out primarily by Company officials, and was devoted largely to the goal of
recoveringthe classical Sanskriticpast, Indologicalresearchin Madrasgenerallylacked directgov-
ernmentalsponsorship,was dominatedby individuals who came from missionary backgrounds,
and tended to be directed more toward the study of vernacularlanguages and local regional cul-
tures(Schmitthenner2001:28-32). While this profile fits well for figureslike CharlesPhilipBrown
and RobertCaldwell, it does not fit Mackenzie at all on the first two of its threecounts, as Schmit-
thennerhimself concedes (2001:29).
9 For the details of Mackenzie's biography,see in additionthe work of Phillimore(1945:349-
52 and 1950:419-28), and the introductionby David M. Blake to Cotton et al. 1992. For discus-
sion of Mackenzie's cartographicwork, see Phillimore 1950:91-121, 152-56 passim; and Edney
1990:152ff. For discussions of Mackenzie's work as a collector of texts and antiquities,see Cohn
1992 (repr1996:76-105); and Dirks 1989 (and repr.in Seneviratne1997:120-35) and 1993.

The "statistical account" requested by Wellesley effectively mandated that

Mackenzie should investigate any and all aspects of the economic, social, and
political conditions of the country-both past and present-that might prove
relevant to its successful administrationby the colonial state.10Mackenzie
chose to do this by collecting ethnographicinformation,oral accounts, antiq-
uities, and writtenhistoricalaccounts,both literaryand epigraphic.
Mackenzie'sconceptionof the potentialvalue of inscriptionsfor the success
of his statisticalaccount is revealed in a document he compiled in 1800, pro-
viding a list of thirty-two"Hintsor Headsof Enquiryfor facilitatingourknowl-
edge of the more southerlypartsof the Deckan"as guidelinesfor his statistical
enquiries."IUnder item numberthirteen,"inscriptionson stone or metal"are
singled out as one of several types of sources that could be used-in the ab-
sence of "regularhistories"among the Hindus-to reconstruct"thehistoryof
the succession of the Rajahs,Naigs, Poligars, or Chief families" who issued
them, and eventually by extension, of the broaderhistory of the Countryitself
(OIOC,MSS Eur F 128/213 [pp. 3-6]).12 Accordingly,the "ablenative assis-
tants"who accompaniedhis surveyingpartiesas translatorswere instructedto
seek out and collect any inscriptionsthey could find in the course of theirpere-
grinationsacross the Mysore country.Although in some cases the actualstone
stelae or copper plates were physically transportedback to Madras,in most
cases the epigraphictexts were collected as facsimiles drawnby hand,repro-
ducing as closely as possible the precise forms of the individualengravedlet-
ters, their disposition across the surfaceof the inscribedstone or copperplate,
and any accompanyingsculpturalornamentsor borders.By 1807, the Indian
10
Clearly,as Cohn has suggested(1996:80), the model for Wellesley's "statisticalaccount"was
providedby Sir John Sinclair's StatisticalAccount of Scotland. According to his own accountin
the Historyof the Origin and Progress of the StatisticalAccountof Scotland(1798), it was Sinclair
who first introducedthe word "statistics"into English, borrowingit from German,where it was
used in the sense of "anenquiryfor ascertainingthe political strengthof a country,or questionsre-
specting mattersof state."Sinclairindicatedthathe intendedit in the slightly different(and appar-
ently more benign) sense of "aninquiryinto the state of a country,for the purposeof ascertaining
the quantumof happinessenjoyedby its inhabitants,andthe means of its futureimprovement(Sin-
clair 1798:v). Given the explicit natureof Wellesley's charge to Mackenzie, it is a mistaketo as-
sume, as Dirks seems to, that Mackenzie's obsessive "interestin collecting narrativesand facts"
somehow representeda privateproject in which he was engaged "on the side" while carryingout
his official, public duties as a surveyor(1989:45, 49).
1 See the
copy presentedto the colonial magistrateand friendof Elphinstone,EdwardStrachey
(1774-1832), preservedin Strachey'spapers in the British Library(OIOC,MSS Eur F 128/213,
pp. 3-6).
12 In thus recognizing the historicalvalue of
inscriptions,Mackenzie was in all probabilityfol-
lowing the lead of the Calcuttaorientalists,who had turnedto inscriptionsafter largely failing in
theirattemptsto access India'sancienthistory from Sanskrittexts such as the Puranas.By the end
of the eighteenth century,they were turningincreasingly to other sources, of which inscriptions
were hailed as the most revealing(see Trautmannand Sinopoli 2002:3-6). As a memberof theAsi-
atic Society of Bengal since 1797 (the year in which CaptainColin Mackenzieis first includedin
the list of "Membersof the Asiatic Society"; see Asiatic Researches, vol. 5), and as a readerof its
journalAsiatic Researches, Mackenzie would certainlyhave been familiarwith the CalcuttaOri-
entalists'growing disillusionmentwith the Puranas,andtheirattendantenthusiasmfor inscriptions.

membersof his survey team had collected the texts of "upwardsof 1100" in-
scriptions,and had translatedand analyzed enough of them for Mackenzie to
be able to write an "IntroductoryMemoir on the use and advantageof inscrip-
tions and sculpturedMonumentsin illustratingHindoo History"(OIOC,Mac-
kenzie GeneralCollection, vol. 18, recensionsA and B). We will returnto this
importantmanuscriptbelow, but first, let us consider more closely the nature
of the collaborationbetween Mackenzie and his Indianassistants.
MACKENZIE'S INDIAN COLLABORATORS
Mackenzie himself was quite frank about his own ignorance of Indian lan-
guages, and openly acknowledgedhis intellectualdebt to his Indiancollabora-
tors. Writing to CharlesWilkins in 1808, for example, Mackenzie confessed
that "My own want of knowledge of the languages has ratherimpeded my
progress,but I have the advantageof able native assistants,andI have been for-
tunateenoughto obtainmuchinterestingmaterials.. ."13While the importance
of Mackenzie's collaboratorshas thus been long recognized, the few available
accountsof them have been largelyrestrictedto the activitiesof the threeCavel-
ly (= Kdvali) brothers-Venkata Borriah,VenkataLakshmiah,and Venkata
Ramaswamy-who were arguablythe most importantandinfluentialmembers
of Mackenzie's establishment.14 Before his untimely death in 1803 at the age
of twenty-seven, Borriahserved briefly as Mackenzie's "headtranslator,"and
had penned a numberof scholarlyarticlesin English on ancientIndianhistory,
as well as a numberof Telugu literaryworks. Lakshmiahinheritedthe post of
"head translator"after Borriah'sdeath, and was assisted by the younger Ra-
maswamywho appearsto have servedas Lakshmaiah'sdeputyandalso worked
as a translatorin Mackenzie'sMadrasoffice. Duringthe time of his service with
Mackenzie, Lakshmaiahwas accordedthe distinctionof being the first Indian
to be inductedinto the MadrasLiterarySociety (until then an exclusively Eu-
ropeanestablishment)and later,in the early 1830s, he foundedandbecame the
first presidentof the Hindu LiterarySociety in Madras,modeled on its Euro-
pean counterpart.Ramaswamywas likewise admittedto the MadrasLiterary
Society, and afterwhat appearsto have been a somewhatturbulentand check-
ered careerwith Mackenzie, went on to pursuea productiveand distinguished
literaryand scholarlycareer,and is rememberedas the authorof Biographical
Sketchesof the DekkanPoets (1829 and numerouslater editions), Descriptive
and Historical Sketchesof Cities and Places in the Dekkan(1828), and various
other works, including an English renderingof an early modernTelugu cook-
13
Mackenzie to Charles Wilkins, Esq., 25 Oct. 1808 (OIOC Mackenzie General collection, vol.
18 (recensionA, bound in before page 279).
14 The Cavelly brothers,and especially the near-mythicBorriah,inevitably loom large in most
accounts of Mackenzie's project. Of works devoted primarilyto them, the most importantis Ra-
machandraRao 2003, which moves well beyond the sourcesin the Mackenziearchiveto focus pri-
activitiesin Teluguas well as in English.
marilyon theKhvalis'ownintellectual

book (Pakasdstra, otherwise called Sfipas'astra,or the Modern Culinary

Recipes of the Hindoos, Madras1836).
Comparedto the Cavelly brothers,Mackenzie's other collaboratorshave
proven far more elusive. From the publishedmaterialsavailable,it is not even
possible to know with certaintyhow many differentcollaboratorsMackenzie
employed, much less form a coherentidea of their individualpersonalitiesand
backgrounds.From various sources-including, most helpfully, the entriesin
H. H. Wilson's catalogue of the Mackenzie collection (1828; see underTrans-
lations, Class XII "Lettersand Reports")-one notes the names of some sev-
enteen or more assistants in addition to the three Cavelly brothers:these are
CristnaRow,AnandaRow, Sooba Row, VenkatRow, NarrainRow, MobaRow,
Seva Row, Sreenivassiah,Mallayya, Ramadoss,Nitala Naina, GundapahSin-
garachari,BaskeiahBramin,Dharmaiah(andson), AbdulAziz, and Swaramai-
ah Sastree.The thoughtsand actions of the individualsbehindthese namescan
be partiallyrecovered, however, thanksto the many volumes of their unpub-
lished writings preservedin manuscriptform in Madras and London. While
they were in the field workingfor Mackenzie,these assistantskept Lakshmai-
ah and Mackenzie informedof their progressby regularlydispatchingletters
and detailed, monthly reportson their activities. The originals of these docu-
ments, written mostly in Telugu, Marathi, and Tamil, are preserved in the
Mackenzie collections of the Government Oriental ManuscriptsLibraryin
Madras (Chennai). Because of Mackenzie's own ignorance of Indian lan-
guages, he had Lakshmaiahand his staff translatethem into English for his
benefit. After Mackenzie's death, these translationswere eventually sent to
London, where they are presently housed in the Oriental and India Office
Collections of the British Library.'5Thanks to the fortuitouspreservationof
these richly detailed documents,it should eventually prove possible to recon-
structwith some precision the careers of most of these other Mackenzie col-
laborators.
It mustbe acknowledgedthatit was Cohn and Dirks, in theirrespectivestud-
ies of the Mackenzie archive,who firstcalled attentionto the existence of these
translatedlettersand reports,but it shouldalso be pointedout thatthey have by
no means exhausted the potential of these documents as historical evidence.
Thus,Cohn(1996:84) presentsonly a general,one-paragraph summaryof Laksh-
maiah'smonthly reportsfor 1804 (MackenzieTranslations,Class XII, #9:39-
99), documentswhich shed little light on the particularstyles and methodsof
'5 Apartfromthe logistical difficultiesposed by the originalsandtheirtranslationsbeinghoused

in separate
librarieson twodifferentcontinents,
anadditional
measureof complexityis introduced
bythefactthattheMadrasMackenziecollectionshavebeenre-catalogued, andarethusnolonger
accessibleundertheirWilsoncataloguedesignations. I amgratefulto PeterSchmitthenner forhis
generoushelpin confirming thecontinuedexistenceandaccessibilityof theseoriginallettersand
reports.Unfortunately, however,I have not yet hadthe opportunityto consultthe originalsin
Madras.

the majority of the less-known collaborators.16Dirks has cast his net more
widely, discussing the activities of at least five collaboratorsother than the
Cavellys, but his approachremains largely anecdotal, and ultimately fails to
penetrateinto the deepersystem of relationsthatbinds these men to the project.
For example, to support his proposition that Mackenzie's assistants were
often foiled in theirattemptsto collect texts-on accountof the local people's
distrustof the British-Dirks quotes from the account of NarrainRow's un-
successful interview at the courtof the Maharajaof Gadwal(MackenzieTrans-
lations,Class XII, no. 14[5]), andconcludesby observingthatNarrainRow was
honoredwith the customarygift of betel nut and then escortedout of the king-
dom empty handed (2001:103; 1993:293).7 This episode indeed provides a
vivid example of the difficulties Mackenzie's collaboratorsoften faced in their
work, but at the same time-if one considers it from a broaderperspective-it
just as clearly demonstratestheirdedicationandingenuityin surmountingthese
obstacles.In fact, anotherletter,writtena monthlater(butfiled out of sequence
in the London archive),reveals that NarrainRow persistedin his attemptsde-
spite this initial failure, and ultimatelysucceeded in acquiring"a good deal of
old papersof that Samastanum[i.e. the Gadwal court]."NarrainRow accom-
plished his task throughthe agency of a local acquaintance,whose father-in-
law was an employee of the courtand agreedto help NarrainRow in returnfor
some "pecuniaryassistance";he was duly paid ten rupees for his efforts, plus
anotherten for road expenses (see TranslationsClass XII, no. 14[3]).18
16 Cohn also presentsa

three-paragraph summaryof the "Reportof Baboo Rao,"describinghis
inquiriescarriedout along the Coromandelcoast, but this is based on the printedtranscriptionof
H. H. Wilson,publishedin his 1828 catalogueof the Mackenziecollection, not on the originalman-
uscripttranslationin the archive (Cohn 1996:84-85). Wilson selected this specimen and included
it in his catalogue as an example of the process throughwhich the literarymss. were collected by
Mackenzie's team.
17 Dirks himself cites "'Lettersand Reports,' [i.e. MackenzieTranslations,Class XII], nos. 26,
27" (2001:330, note 62), but the accountin questionis actuallycontainedin Class XII, no. 14 [item
5]. Class XII, no. 26 containsthreeseparatereportsof NarrainRow's, for the years 1811, 1812, and
1813, duringwhich time he was working in the Ceded Districts (the presentRayalaseemaregion
of Andhra)furthersouth from Gadwal,which was in the Nizam's dominions (the presentKurnool
Districtof Telangana).Accordingto the index listing in the Wilson catalogue,Class XII, no. 27 ap-
pearsto have been a duplicateof the previousnumber,but it is marked"missing"in the BritishLi-
brary's1986 shelf-list.
18 Anotherexample of the often significantinaccuraciesin Dirks' representationof these doc-
uments may be found in his discussion of the report describing the activities of "C. V. Ram" in
Aunomacondahand Vorungole(the present Hanamkondaand Warangal,in AndhraPradesh;see
Class XII, no. 47). The reportwas actually writtenby NarrainRow, as is clearly indicated in the
heading at the top of its first page, "Reportof NarrainRow from April to August 1816"; Dirks'
"C. V. Ram"is a misreadingfor "C. V. Ram.y,"the abbreviatedsignatureof Cavelly VenkataRa-
maswamywho translatedNarrainRow's reportinto English from its originalTelugu, and certified
his work thus at the bottom of the last page: "TrueTran.tionby C. V. Ram.y."Dirks explains that
the authorof the reportbefriendedan aged, learnedBrahmanat Aunomacondah,andthat "thesub-
sequentinformationin the reportwas then based almost exclusively on the words of the old Brah-
man" (2001:101). Carefulreadingof the report,however, reveals that this is not at all the case; to
the contrary,folios 41 verso through52 recto are the synopsis of an old palm-leaf manuscriptpre-

The point of these criticisms is in no way to belittle the importantcontribu-

tions of Cohn and Dirks, but simply to suggest that furtherresearchinto the
Mackenzie archive is needed. Clearly,if we are to retrievethe personalitiesof
Mackenzie's unknown assistantswithout falling prey to easy generalizations
and a prioriassumptions,what is requiredis a far more systematicapproachto
the documentsthan can be achieved simply by samplingtheir contentsat ran-
dom. One possible methodthat suggests itself is to adopt a biographicalframe
of analysis, focusing on the activities of individualfigures, as revealedthrough
the totalityof their preservedletters and reports.I have made a first attemptin
this directionby examiningthe careerof just one of Mackenzie'sunknowncol-
laborators:NarrainRow Brahmin,who workedfor Mackenzie for a period of
fifteen years between 1803 and 1818. Much of the interpretationthat follows
is predicatedon my systematicanalysis of the more than 100 translatedletters
and reportsof NarrainRow that are preservedin London, as well as upon my
carefulreadingof the one historiographicwork writtenby NarrainRow that is
available in published form in its original Telugu-the Sruiaila Djvdlaya
Kaiphiyatu,composed in 1810.19
sented to NarrainRow by the brahmin;52v.-59r. are taken up by NarrainRow's own antiquarian

account of the ruins and inscriptionsof the city of Orungole(Warangal),based on his own direct
observationand study; 59v.-63v. are blank in the ms.; 64r.-69v. are the synopsis of anotherhisto-
riographictext procuredby NarrainRow in Warangal;andfinally,the last pages (70r.-75r.)recount
NarrainRow's antiquarianobservationscarriedout at sites in the vicinity of Warangal,andthenhis
returnjourney to Hyderabad.
19 The text was first publishedin an English translationby P. Sitapatiin 1981, and was followed
by an edition in the original Telugu preparedby Sitapatithe following year (see NarayanaRdvu
1810). Sitapati'stranslationin fact abridgesand summarizesthe text and does not providea reli-
able indicationof the complex texture and historiographicsophisticationof the original.Narrain
Row's authorshipof the text is explicitly indicatedthroughthe intriguing,one-sentence"colophon"
written in Persian (but in Telugu script) at the end of the text. This statementreads "dariydpti
nardyana rdvu mutassaddiyilake mijarkalan mekanjtsdhebu; tadrku13 mdhe me sannu 1810
yisavi." It can be recognized, however, as a Persian sentence that would be transcribedin ortho-
graphicallycorrectform as:dar-ydftinarrainravumutasaddi aldqa-i mejarkalanmekanji-sahab;
tdrTkh13 mdh-i me sana 1810 'TsawT. This can be translatedas "An investigation of the accoun-
tant NarrainRao, in the service of MajorColin Mackenzie-sahib,the thirteenthday of the month
of May, year 1810 of the Christianera."Sitapatimisconstruesthe word dariydptias NarrainRao's
family name (inti-piru), and takes him to be "the scribe" who "recorded"the account (Sitapati
1981:xii). Sitapatiwas correct in identifying NarrainRao as one of Mackenzie's mutasaddis,al-
thoughhe was confused abouthis name and his precise role in producingthe text. None of the let-
ters and reportsI have examinedidentifies NarrainRao by means of any Nor does Sita-
in.ti-piru.
pati seem to have registeredthe crucialpoint thatthis last sentence in the text is writtenin Persian.
Almost all of the words used have in fact been borrowedinto Telugu from Persianor Hindustani,
but the syntax and grammarof this statementare unmistakablyPersian,not Telugu.Althoughthere
is a lacunain the surviving lettersand reportsof NarrainRow's activities, covering almostthe en-
tirety of 1810, it is significant thathis last recordedlocation before this hiatus,on 6 January1810,
is at Kampili,in the presentBellary districtof Karnataka,not far from Srisailam,locatedin the ad-
jacent Kurnooldistrictof AndhraPradesh.(See BritishLibrary,OIOCEur.mss., MackenzieTrans-
lations, Class XII/14, 4 [sheets 6v and7], letterto Cavelly VenkataLakshmaiahdated6 Jan. 1810).
When NarrainRow reappearsafter this hiatus, in Januaryof 1811, he is in the "CededDistricts,"
that is, the presentCuddapahdistrictin southernAndhra.

NIYOGIS AT THE ARCOT COURT
Before turningto some of the details of NarrainRow's personal background

and contributions,it is necessaryfirst to clarify his social identityas a brahmin.
Although the majority of Mackenzie's assistants can in fact be identified as
brahmins,it would be a serious mistake to think of them in terms of the tradi-
tional stereotype of "the brahmin"as described in normative Dharma-~flstra
texts. Throughtheir use of the distinctive caste-suffix "Rao"(Telugu,ravu), a
majorityof Mackenzie's brahminscan be identifiedin far more specific terms
as Niyogis, a class of secular(laukika)brahminswho typically supportedthem-
selves by accepting appointments(niyigamu) to political and administrative
service. Some Niyogis served at the village level as accountants(karanam),
while others served in a more cosmopolitan courtly setting as ministers,resi-
dents, or otherfunctionariesin the administrativebureaucracy.
The emergence of the Niyogi community can tentativelybe tracedback to
the twelfth andthirteenthcenturies,in the periodof the Kakatiyakingdom's as-
cendancyover theAndhracountry(LakshmanaRao 1965[1923]). Althoughthe
termNiyogi itself does not appearto be documenteduntil much later,Kakatiya
inscriptionspoint to the existence of a loosely defined sub-class of brahmins
who took up secularoccupationsin the political society of the time. As Cynthia
Talbot has shown, these brahminsoften identified themselves in inscriptions
with the title rdju, from the Sanskrit rdjan and literally meaning "king" or
"prince,"but here used in the sense of one who is employed by a lord or prince
(Talbot2001:57; othertitles used include amatya, mantri,andpregada,all used
in the sense of "minister").These secular brahminsthus distinguishedthem-
selves from otherbrahminswho continuedto follow theirtraditionalcalling as
religious specialists or scholars and used the titles bhatta or Signifi-
cantly, this early brahminusage of the title raju appearsto prefigure
pand.ita.the later
title "Rao" (ravu), which is likewise derived from rajan, but through the
Marathiform "Rao."By the Vijayanagaraperiod (fourteenthto sixteenthcen-
turies), the traditionof secular brahminservice in political and even military
contexts had become so widespread and well-established, that the early six-
teenth-centuryemperor Krishnadevarayaespecially recommends that brah-
mins be appointedas commandersof forts.20Although it appearsto have first
originatedin the Telugucountry,the Niyogi brahmincommunityhadby the late
eighteenthcenturybecome widely dispersedacross most of the Deccan, reach-
ing more or less the area of its presentdistribution.21
20 See
Krishnadevaraya's
Amuktamdlyada IV,205-85, andespeciallyverse207. Fortransla-
tionanddiscussion,see Rangasvami Sarasvati1926.
21 Today,Niyogis are foundin
significantnumbersin fourlinguisticstatesof SouthIndia:
AndhraPradesh,Maharashtra,Karnataka,andTamilNadu.Those living outside of Andhraarerou-
tinelybilingual,speakingTeluguin thehomeandusingthelocallanguage-Marathi, or
Kannada,
Tamil-when interactingwith outside communities.See K. S. Singh 1998:2644-48 for a contem-
poraryethnographicaccount of the various Niyogi brahmincommunities.

From a traditionalperspective,the salaried,administrativeemploymentem-

braced by Niyogis was held to be demeaning, and resultedin the widespread
perceptionthatNiyogi brahminswere inferiorto theirmore conservativecoun-
terpartsin terms of purityand ritualhierarchy.But at the same time, this polit-
ical service could also be both economically and socially advantageous,as it
providedNiyogi families with regularsources of cash income and access to an
expandedrange of social networks.Moreover,because of their willingness to
serve as social and economic intermediariesbetween the local world of the vil-
lage and the cosmopolitanworld of the court, Niyogis as a class came to em-
body an unusualconstellationof linguistic skills andattitudestowardlanguage.
On the one hand, they tended to identify more closely with the local south In-
dian vernacularsthanthey did with Sanskrit,which was seen as the intellectu-
al preserve of their more traditionalcounterparts;on the otherhand, they also
cultivatedskills of literacyin a succession of cosmopolitanadministrativelan-
guages, from Marathiand Hindustanito Persianand eventually English.
By the turn of the nineteenthcentury,when Mackenzie embarkedupon his
Survey of Mysore, there was a majorrepositoryof Niyogi talent locatedright
in the city of Madras,concentratedprimarilyat the court of the Nawab of Ar-
cot.22 Although the primaryseat of the Nawab had originally been in Arcot
town, some sixty-five miles west of Madras,muchof the courtbureaucracyhad
shifted to Madras after 1768, when the Nawab MuhammadAli built a new
palace just adjacentto Fort St. George.23Contemporaryrecords indicatethat
by this period Arcot's revenue administrationhad become thoroughlydomi-
nated by Niyogi brahmins-an understandabledevelopmentgiven the advan-
tages of their broadmultilingualismand literacy relatedskills.
The most detailed informationrelating to the dominanceof Niyogis in the
Arcot revenue administrationcomes from the records of AvadanumPaupia
Braminyet al. versusReddyRow and AnundaRow,a celebratedlegal case tried
in the SupremeCourtat Madrason 10 October, 1808, and documentedin co-
pious detail thanksto the publicationof its proceedingsin 1811 (see PREIAIII
1811 and PREIAIV 1809). The two defendantsin the case had been members
of the Arcot darbar duringthe reign of Umdat al-Umra(1795-1801) and had
allegedly been involved in a conspiracy to forge governmentbonds. Of the
eighty-fourwitnesses called duringthe course of the case, fifty-nine had been
employees of the Arcot darbadrand out of these fifty-nine, as many as thirty-
22 The Cavelly brotherswere themselves
Niyogi brahmins,althoughthey hailed not from Ar-
cot, but from Eluru in the presentWest GodavariDistrict of AndhraPradesh(RamachandraRao
2003). Nonetheless, they did have familial connectionswithArcot-Lakshmaiah at one pointmen-
tions visiting his relativeSeeteramiahwho lived there-which suggests the likelihoodof theirhav-
ing been instrumentalin recruitingadditionalArcot Niyogis, whetherfrom Madrascity or Arcot
town itself, to serve theiremployer.(See BritishLibrary,OIOCEur.mss., MackenzieTranslations,
Class XII, no. 9, "Reportof C. V. Letchmiahto MajorC. MackenzieEsq. ... for the monthof June
1804,"entries for 13 and 14 June.)
23
See Ramaswami 1984:317-22.

eight (or 64 percent)areidentifiableas Niyogis on the basis of theirnames.The

two next largest groups-Muslims and Kayasthas (or analogous immigrant
writing castes from northernIndia)-fall far behind, at only 10 percent and 5
percent respectively. The records of this case are also invaluable for the cir-
cumstantialdetails they recordrelatingto mattersof language use at the Arcot
court in general, and in particular,in the revenue administrationof the state.
The general picture that emerges is that Persian and English were used as the
two main mediums for written correspondence,and that Persian and Marathi
were used as the principallanguages for keeping accounts. Telugu and Tamil
were evidently the two primarylanguages used for in-group communication
among the Niyogi bureaucrats,as well as for out-groupcommunicationat the
local level. The accuracyof this pictureis vouchsafedby the fact thatit is large-
ly corroboratedby the testimony of contemporaryPersianhistories of the Ar-
cot court, such as Muhammad Karim's Sawanihat-i Mumtdz (translatedin
Nainar 1940 and 1944).24
NARRAIN ROW AND HIS COLLABORATION WITH MACKENZIE

NarrainRow Brahminproducedmore thanone hundredletters,reports,and in-
terpretivedocuments during his fifteen years with Mackenzie (1803-1818),
andto judge from the vivid picturethatemerges from them, he must have been
one of the more impressiveof the Niyogi recruits.NarrainRow explicitly iden-
tifies himself as a native of Arcot, and circumstantialevidence overwhelming-
ly suggests the likelihood of his having previously been employed in the
Nawab's administration.25In any event, by the time he joined Mackenzie, he
had masteredall of the languages used in the Arcot administration-and then
some-with documentedproficiencyin Telugu,Marathi,Kannada,Tamil,San-
skrit,Hindustani,Persian,andEnglish. Thanksto the survivalof his lettersand
reports, it is possible to reconstructhis peregrinationsacross the length and
breadthof the Deccan, month by month, and often day by day, from Tirupati
andMysore in the southto Pune andAhmadnagarin the Marathadominionsto
the north.In the course of these travels, NarrainRow collected scores of me-
dievalhistoricaltexts in Telugu,Kannada,Marathi,Sanskrit,andPersian,wrote
many original historiographic works, including an innovative "statistical"
analysis of Ahmadnagardistrictand the first coherentantiquariandescriptions
24 I have provideda more detaileddiscussion of these distinctbodies of evidence and theirbear-
ing on the social and linguistic composition of the Arcot court as a chapterin a largerstudy,still in
progress,of NarrainRow's collaborationwith Mackenzie.The book's workingtitle is Mappingthe
Past: The Career of Narrain Row Bramin and Colin Mackenzie'sSurvey of South India, 1803-
1818.
25 One of the most importantsources of informationon NarrainRow's personalbackgroundis
his accountof his audiencewith SitaramBhupalaRaja at Gadwal, a petty king and mansabdarof
the Nizamof Hyderabad.This accountis containedin NarrainRow's letterto CavellyVenkataLaksh-
maiah, written from Corucondahand dated 5 October 1809 (British Library,OIOC Eur. mss.,
MackenzieTranslations,Class XII, no. 14[5])

of such sites as Ellora andWarangal,and collected hundredsupon hundredsof

inscriptions,mostly in Telugu,Kannada,Sanskrit,and Tamil.26
Justwhat would anArcotNiyogi like NarrainRow have broughtto Macken-
zie's project?There were, I believe, many factors,not the least of which was a
professional orientationand work ethic which were strikinglycongruentwith
Mackenzie's. Because of their years of experience in the revenue administra-
tion atArcot,NarrainRow andhis Niyogi colleagues would have beenperfectly
comfortableworkingwithina tightly organizedbureaucratichierarchy.So, too,
was Mackenzie,for whom yearsof militaryservice andofficial governmentap-
pointmentsmade this the most naturalmodel for organizinghis staff. Indeed,
therewas an almost uncannyconvergencebetweenprecolonialandcolonial ad-
ministrativestructures,as Mackenzie's organizationclosely replicatedthe of-
fices and hierarchiesestablishedat the Arcot court.Thus, Mackenzie'sNiyogi
staff membersare referredto in the contemporaryrecordsnot as "nativeinfor-
mants"-as they have been conceived in our own time throughwhat is essen-
tially a backwardprojectionof a modernparadigmfor anthropologicalfield re-
search27-but rather,as "writers"(munshis), "accountants"(mutasaddis),and
"administrativeassistants"(gumdshtas),using the very same Persianadminis-
trative titles that these men would have borne while employed under the
Nawab.28Thereare otherimportantareasin which this convergenceof outlook
26 The statisticalaccount of Ahmadnagaris titled "ParticularAccount of the Agriculture,Pro-

duction, Manufactures,Commerce,Importsand Exports, with the Coins, Weights and Measures
and also an Account of the Soil, Seasons, Rains, Animals, etc. etc. of the Tallookof Ahmednuggur
in the Deckan,fromEnquirieson the Spot from IntelligentNatives, in 1806"(BritishLibrary,OIOC
Eur. mss., Mackenzie General,XIV, no. 7). This work appearsto have been jointly producedby
NarrainRow and his collaboratorAnandaRow, with whom he traveledand workedin the Maratha
country during this period. The antiquariandescriptionof Ellora was likewise co-authoredwith
Ananda Row, and is titled "Memoir Descriptive of the Ancient Place of Ellola [sic] near
Dowlatabad-compiled fromthe Mahatyamsof thatAncient Stullumand an inspectionof the Sev-
eralAncient Monumentsexisting thereby NarrainRow andAnundaRow in 1806"(BritishLibrary,
OIOCEur.mss., MackenzieGeneral,XIV,no. 8). The antiquarianaccountof Warangalis contained
in NarrainRow's letter to Cavelly VenkataLakshmaiah,written from "Urungole"[= Warangal]
and dated 1 August 1816 (BritishLibrary,OIOCEur.mss., MackenzieTranslations,Class XII, no.
49), andagain in a fuller versionin his "Reportof NarrainRow fromApril to August 1816"(British
Library,OIOC Eur.mss., Mackenzie General,XIV, no. 47; see especially folios 53-59, and 69-
74). A detailed account of NarrainRow's travels and scholarly activities will be includedin my
forthcomingMapping the Past (see note 24 above).
27 See, for example, the title of Dirks' 1993 essay, "ColonialHistories and Native Informants:
Biographyof an Archive."
28 A munshTwas by definitiona professionalwriter-someone who might producecorrespon-
dence, write, copy, or translatedocuments,or producereports.In contrast,a mutasaddiwas tech-
nically an accountant-someone who had not only the necessary literateskills, but also and more
importantly,the advancedskills of numeracyneeded to keep accountsand otherrecordsrelatingto
revenue, money, and finance. Althoughthe two offices were thus technically differentiated,it ap-
pears thattherewas often a considerabledegree of overlapbetween the munshTand the mutasaddr.
As it was explainedto the courtby one of the witnesses in the case of AvadanumPaupia Braminy
et al. versus ReddyRow and AnundaRow, "The business of Moonshee is to write, thatof Moota-
suddie to keep accounts; the two offices are often dischargedby the same person"(PREIAIV
1809:55; the witness in questionis named "NarrainRow,"but this is clearly not the same Narrain

can be detected.Both Mackenzie and his Niyogis acceptedthe propositionthat

the productionof knowledge meant the generationof "statistical"information
for the use of the state,whethercolonial or pre-colonial,andboth acceptedthat
such knowledge was most effectively producedthroughthe modality of field-
survey, whether that be devoted to the production of maps (in the case of
Mackenzie)or to the collection of revenueinformation(in the case of his Niyo-
gis). Most importantly,both accepted that an investigation of the past was an
importantcomponent of this survey activity, and that present-dayeconomic
arrangementscould not be properlyunderstoodwithout simultaneouslycon-
sidering the historical conditions of their production. For this reason, both
Mackenzie and his Niyogis ascribed a high evidentiaryvalue to donative in-
scriptions,in that the vast majorityof such inscriptionsdocumentedthe terms
of religious gifts involving the right to collect revenue from agriculturaland
othertaxes.
So much for the existence of sharedbodies of experienceand orientationthat
made the collaborationsuch a naturalandproductiveone. But what aboutthose
uniquequalities and skills thatmen like NarrainRow broughtto the collabora-
tion, skills and abilities that were not otherwise available to Mackenzie, and
which would thus have constitutedtheirmost importantcontributionto the de-
veloping discipline of epigraphy?
Perhaps the single most importantfactor relates to the heightened critical
awarenessof language and writing that had emerged among these Niyogis in
the course of performingtheir duties in the Arcot bureaucracy.In this connec-
tion, it is importantto stress that the Niyogi approachto language differed de-
cisively from that of the more tradition-mindedbrahminswhose interests in
language centered on Sanskritand its discipline of vydkarana,or "linguistic
analysis."Although the Sanskritvydkaranatraditiondid produce systematic
and sophisticated theories of language, we must nonetheless recognize that
there were limitationsto this kind of work, in that it concentratedprimarilyon
the synchronic,structuralaspects of the Sanskritlanguage to the exclusion of
its diachronic or pragmatic aspects. The linguistic interests that developed
among Niyogis could hardly have been more different from those of the
vydkaranatradition.On the one hand, they had developed a more sophisticat-
ed ability to think of language in comparativeterms, apparentlyas a result of
their simultaneousprofessional involvement with so many linguistically dis-
tinct languages. In their professional administrativeduties, they would have
been regularlycalled upon to translatedocumentsfrom one languageto anoth-
er, to make judgments about the commensurabilityor incommensurabilityof
certain terms and concepts, and ultimately, to transcendthese specific lan-
Row who workedwith Mackenzie).The termgumashtadesignateda personal"assistant,""agent,"

or "secretary"to a higherrankingmunshtor mutasaddr.It is interestingto note that as a nominal
derivativefrom the Persianverb gumashtan,"to assign, to appoint,"the word is thus equivalentto
the Sanskritniyogi, "one who is appointed."

guages and the culturesthey embodied, to arriveat an overarchingtheoretical

understandingof language as a universal category of human experience, of
which Sanskrit-contra the claims of the vydkaranatradition29-was but one
of many equally valid manifestations.On the other hand, they were also far
more concerned with the particularsand variationsof individual speech acts
(and, by extension, what we might think of as "writingacts") because of their
daily involvementwith administrativerecordsanddocumentsthatcould all too
readily be forged and falsified. It was thus importantfor Niyogis to develop a
heightenedcriticalsense for the historicallycontingentand time-boundaspects
of languageand writing,from the distinctivegraphologicalfeaturesthatreveal
an individual'sunique hand, to the specific lexical and syntactic choices that
might serve to identify a documentas the productof a particularchronological
moment. In effect, what they developed was an implicit theory of secondary
signification, accordingto which these types of unconscious formalvariation,
which were not directly linked to the expression of a statement'sintended
meaning, could be variablyconstruedas signifiers of the authorshipof a writ-
ten document,or of the chronologicalmoment of its production.
Niyogis did not, on the whole, give formal, theoreticalexpressionto these
views on language, but if we consider carefullythe implicationsof theirdocu-
mented professional practice,we must nonetheless infer their existence as an
implicit set of assumptions.As for the graphologicalability to identifythe au-
thor of a given documentsimply on the basis of its handwriting,the recordsof
the 1808 courtcase againstReddyRow andAnundaRow clearly implythatthis
was a widespreadand highly developed skill among the Arcot Niyogis. Read-
ing these records, we learn,for example, that the defendantAnundaRow was
repeatedlyasked over the course of his deposition to judge the identityof the
persons who had writtencertaindocuments, solely on the basis of theirhand-
writing:
[Q:]In whosehand-writing arethewords"inspected," "examined," on thebackof the
sowal?
[AnundaRow:]Oneof themI knowto be in the handwriting of ReddyRow,andthe
otherI believeto be thehand-writing of Roy SreenevasRow.
[Q:]Do youknowin whosehand-writing theswadontheaccountcurrentandsowalis?

[AnundaRow:]I knowit to be theswadof theNabobOmdutul Omrah.
[Q:]Didyoueversee theNabobwrite?
[AnundaRow:]Never.
29 The traditionalposition had
arguedthat only Sanskritbore the powers of primaryand sec-
ondarysignification,therebyqualifyingit as the sole communicativemedium. If wordsin vernac-
ular languages also appearedto function in this way, it was held to be either throughthe "memo-
ry" of the original Sanskritwords from which they were believed to be derived, or througha mere
"illusion"of primarysignification. See Pollock 2001:26-30.

[Q:]Thenhowdo youknowthesecharacters to be thehand-writing

of theNabob?
[AnundaRow:]I haveseenhis handwriting frequently,andfromtheresemblancethese
bearto it, I knowthemto be his hand-writing
characters (PREIAIII 1811:294-95).
Given this heightenedgraphologicalawarenesson the partof the munsh s and
mutasaddTsof Arcot, it was but a short step to the developmentof a practical
methodfor the collection, decipherment,and classificationof the variousearli-
er forms of scriptsused in inscriptions.AnundaRow's testimony points to his
reliance on an abstractnotion of individualgraphologicalnorms-"the hand-
writing of Reddy Row," "thehandwritingof Roy SreenevasaRow,""thehand-
writing of the Nabob"-and his use of a comparativeformalmethodto identi-
fy any given sample as a particularmanifestationof that norm-"I have seen
his hand-writingfrequently,andfrom the resemblancethese charactersbear to
it, I know them to be his handwriting."Takingthe same kind of sensitivity to
subtle formalvariationsthat is implied in such a critical operation,and apply-
ing it to the act of accuratelytranscribinga textual specimen so as to reproduce
these significantformaldetails, standsas one importantstep towardthe formu-
lation of a paleographicmethodology.A second crucial step consists in the use
of the formalcomparativemethod,as a means to conclude thatthe initially un-
recognizablelettersin an ancienttext in fact representarchaicforms of the same
letters as they would be writtenin a familiarmodernscript,simply by virtueof
"the resemblance"they bear to their modern forms. It is for this reason that
Mackenzie's Niyogis tended to work backwards in their paleographic deci-
pherments,startingwith more closely relatedforms of scriptfrom the laterme-
dieval period, and then moving progressively fartherback to the more distant
early scripts.Thus, NarrainRow and his colleagues had no problemsreading
inscriptionsin the Hala-Kannadascript datingback to as early as the eleventh
century,but the still earlier seventh-centuryforms of this script-which they
called "Poorwad-Halla-Canara" (pirva-hla-kannada), or "earlierold Kanna-
da," implicitly revealing that they recognized it to be an earlier genealogical
form of Hala-Kannada30-seems to have remained undecipheredby any of
Mackenzie's collaborators.But the most importantpoint to recognize here is
that they nonethelessproceededto make faithful copies of these undeciphered
inscriptions,and that if the hand-copiesthey thus producedare readabletoday
by someone informed by the many furtheradvances in paleographicunder-
standingmade afterthe time of these pioneeringNiyogis, it is preciselybecause
of the heightened sensitivity to distinctive formal variationsthat they had de-
veloped in connectionwith theirearlieradministrativework at the Arcot court.
30 See "specimennumber3" of the facsimiles in the "recensionA"

copy of Mackenzie'sRegis-
ter of a Collection of Ancient Sassanums or Grants and Inscriptions on Public Monuments...
(British Library,OIOC Eur. mss., Mackenzie General, vol. XVIII). The facsimile of this copper
plate from NagamangalamDistrictis labeled as being in the charactercalled "ThePoorwad-Halla-
Canarayet undecypheredOctober 1806."

The Niyogi's critical awareness of language was not just restrictedto this
graphologicallevel, however. Of still greatersignificance is the fact thatthese
men possessed an awarenessof the chronologicalimplicationsof recurrentstyl-
istic formulaeandotherdistinctivelexical usages. Let us considerfor a moment
the deposition of anotherwitness in the case of AvadanumPapiah vs. Reddy
Row and Anunda Row. Here, the witness Narsinga Row is being questioned
abouthis abilities to pass judgment on the authenticityof bonds issued by the
Nawab's treasurydepartment.Although he initially appeals to his knowledge
of the various hands in which they are written,he goes on to describehis use
of a similarmethodof formallybased criticismappliedto the syntacticandlex-
ical forms of the text itself:
[Q:]Haveyou anyinformation whichcanguideyou, in forminga judgmentas to the
or spuriousness
authenticity of anyparticular
Bondsout-standingagainstthe Nabobs
Wallajah andOmdut ul Omrah?
[Narsinga Rao:][Myopinionon thegenuinenessof bonds]hasbeenfoundedprincipal-
of thepersonsintheNabob'sservice,whowere
ly upona knowledgeof thehand-writing
generallyemployedto writeBonds;andI sometimes judgedof thespuriousnessof the
Bondsfrom the tenor of them, which was differentfrom that in which true Bonds were
usually written.
And further:
TheBondin thenameof GopaulRowbeingshownto theWitness,he is asked,Whether
he hasanyreasonto knowwhetherit is a genuineBondof theNabobOmdutul Omrah
ornot?
whichI know,and theBonds
[NarsingaRao:]This Bondis not in any hand-writing
as genuinehavenevercontainedthewords,"benaberi
whichI haverecognized zuroorut
karikhood,"or, in English, "on account of the necessity of my affairs," and the expres-
sionat thebottom,"eentumusookwapisgiriftekhahudshood,"or,inEnglish,"thisbond
will be takenback,"are not usual in the Bonds whichI have consideredgenuine (PREIA
III 1911:308;my emphasis).31
The implicationsof NarsingaRow's testimony are simple and clear enough,
but at the same time they hold a tremendouspotentialfor the developmentof
an epigraphicmethodology.The testimony implies not only that he recognizes
the time-boundnatureof certain lexical and syntacticchoices, and thathe has
built up a mentalcatalogue of typical phrasesand expressionsoccurringin the
formallanguageof a given historicalcontext, but most importantly,thathe can
also employ this knowledge to pass judgment on the chronologicalage-and
by extension, the authenticity-of a given document.
The potentialof such a method for the dating of inscriptionsis tremendous
indeed. One of the recurrenthurdles of epigraphicresearchin India is that so
many inscriptionsare either undatedor have lost their dates throughabrasion
31 Modern transcriptionof the two Persianphrases quoted by Narsinga Rao would be "bind-
bar-i zaratrat-i kadr-ikhad" and "tn tamassuk wapas gerefteh khvdhad shaid," respectively.

and breakage.But this problemmay readily be surmountedby extending this

critical method of authenticatingrecent administrativedocuments and apply-
ing it to the similartask of datingundatedinscriptionsfrom a more distantera.
Significantly,just two years after Narsinga Rao explained his critical proce-
dures in his court deposition, we have evidence of Mackenzie's collaborator
NarrainRow making use of precisely the same methodology in his critical
analysis of some of the inscriptionshe had collected. In his SridailaDevdlaya
Kaiphiyatu,or "ParticularAccount of the SrisailamTemple"writtenin 1810,
NarrainRow twice appeals to the concept of "vakkana"as groundsfor dating
an otherwiseundatedinscription.Althoughthe Teluguword "vakkana"is more
often used in the sense of the formulaicgreetings at the opening of a letter,he
uses it here in an extended sense to refer to the string of titles or birudas that
are appliedto a ruler,and which occupy a comparableposition at the opening
of an inscription.The very fact that he uses the word "vakkana,"however, is
strongly suggestive of a process of adaptation,as concepts and practices that
had originallybeen developed in the context of court administrationare being
transferredto the new historiographictask. In the first passage, NarrainRow
describes a damaged inscriptionin which the name of the issuing king is ef-
faced, but which he ascribesto the fourteenth-centuryrulerVemayaReddi sim-
ply on the basis of the "vakkana"used, which he alreadyrecognizes from his
familiaritywith other inscriptionsissued by this ruler:
Next,thereis a slightlydamagedstoneinscription withthevakkanaof VemayaReddi,
lordof thelionthroneof Addanki.Thisinscription is on a pillarin themandapa hallin
frontof theeasterndoorwayto the sanctumof the Srisailamtemple.[Therefollowsa
verbatimtranscription of the stringof titlesconstitutingthe "vakkana" of the grant.]
Becauseof the damageto thisinscription, the donor'snameandthe Sakadatearenot
preserved.However,theSakadate1283andcyclicyearPlavangaarementionedin oth-
er inscriptionsof VemayaReddi,whichhave preciselythe same vakkana(Sritsaila
DevalayaKaiphiyatu, 12;mytranslation).
NarrainRow here is clearly concluding that this inscriptionmust also belong
to VemayaReddi, and thatit would thus most likely have been issued at some
point aroundSaka 1283.
In a second instance of his appeal to the concept of vakkana,NarrainRow
follows a similar chain of logic in ascribing an inscriptionto the reign of the
VijayanagararulerKrishnadevaraya.In this case, the epigraphrecordsa series
of donationsmade to the Srisailamtempleby one Koti Chinnisetti,butthe name
of the reigning king has been effaced: "The place where Krishnaraya'sname
would have appearedat the top of the inscriptionhas been brokenoff. Howev-
er, the vakkanais entirelythatof Krishnaraya,and moreover,the Sakadate that
is given falls within the reign of Krishnaraya,so therecan be no doubt [thatthis
inscription can be considered as pertaining to the reign of Krishnaraya]"
(Sr-iaila Devdlaya Kaiphiyatu,14; my translation).
From our present perspective, in which the history of Vijayanagara'sex-

pandingterritorialholdingsis so well known, it might appearthatthe mereSaka

date alone should have been sufficientfor NarrainRow to concludethatthe in-
scriptionpertainedto Krishnaraya.But we mustrememberthatin 1810, the his-
torical geography of India was still in its infancy, and Mackenzie's collabora-
tors were in fact pioneers in the process of plotting premodernpolities along
the dual axes of time and space, recognizingthatthe expansionand contraction
of territoriescould be measuredthroughepigraphicmeans. In approachingthis
inscription,NarrainRow alreadyknew of both the Vijayanagarastate and the
contemporaneousGajapatikingdomin coastalAndhra,but would not yet have
known where the boundarybetween these two states was drawnin Saka 1434
(1512 A.D.). By reasoningin terms of the vakkana,which he could easily rec-
ognize as Krishnaraya's,NarrainRow could infer not only that the inscription
would have been issued in that ruler's name, but also, and more significantly,
thatin 1512 at least, it was Vijayanagarathat dominatedthe Srisailamcountry.
MADRAS VERSUS CALCUTTA: THE IMPACT OF THE

MACKENZIE PROJECT ON LATER EPIGRAPHY
To those familiar with the history of epigraphicstudies in nineteenth-century

India, my emphasis on the historical significance of Mackenzie's projectmay
appearto run counterto received characterizationsof the projectas essentially
a "beachedwhale."AlthoughMackenzie'sepigraphicprojectis often assumed
to have died withoutbegettingintellectualprogeny,carefulconsiderationof just
what it producedand how it was received suggests otherwise.In particular,the
projectgeneratedtwo primaryproductswhich appearto have exercised a sig-
nificant impact on the subsequentdevelopment of epigraphyin India. These
were the actualcorpusof collected epigraphictexts, and the analytical"Regis-
ter"that served as an index to the texts and summarizedthe historicaldatathey
contained.
Although the completely unprecedentednatureof the Mackenzie epigraph-
ic corpushas thus far escaped notice, it constitutedthe first attemptto produce
a comprehensivecollection of Indianepigraphictexts througha systematical-
ly organizedsurvey.None of the early Calcuttaepigraphershad ever attempt-
ed to carryout systematiccollections; rather,they remainedcontentto analyze
individualinscriptionswhich were, in Colebrooke'sown words, "occasionally
discovered throughvarious accidents"(1807:398). While each such acciden-
tally discovered epigraphof course contributedin some small measureto the
understandingof India'spast,ultimately,realprogresswould come only through
the systematicassemblingof comprehensivecollections of inscriptions.All too
often, the potentialof a given inscriptionas a historicaldocumentremainsun-
realized,until one is able to relateits contentsto the testimonyof otherrecords
pertainingto the same time andplace-just as we have seen in the case of Nar-
rain Row's success in dating the undatedinscriptionshe found at Srisailam,
thanksto his ability to relate them to otherinscriptionsalreadyin the project's
growing corpus.

If Mackenzie was able to move beyond the Calcuttaorientalistsin conceiv-

ing of the idea of such a systematic undertaking,it was at least in part due to
his professionaloutlook as a cartographicsurveyor,and to the fact that he had
been explicitly chargedto carry out a "statisticalsurvey"in tandem with his
map-makingactivities. But at the same time, thathe was able to implementthis
scheme so successfully dependedjust as much on his collaborationwith his
Niyogi assistants, whose own professional outlook as revenue administrators
provided such a perfect complement to Mackenzie's. By the time the project
concluded in about 1818, Mackenzie's team had producedan epigraphiccor-
pus thatwas the largestever producedin India,one thatwould not be surpassed
for many decades. Estimates of the collection's size vary from "more than
7,500" to the precise figure of 8,076,32but whicheverfigure one prefersto ac-
cept, it is clear that Mackenzie's collection of inscriptions far exceeded any
made by his contemporaries.33
Given thatMackenzieneverpublishedthis corpus,one may reasonablywon-
der how much of an impactit could have exercised on subsequentscholarship.
Although the collection remained unpublished, Mackenzie himself corre-
sponded regularlywith other epigraphers,often sharingthe fruits of his proj-
ect's labors.In this regard,it is noteworthythathe was in close contactwith the
leading epigraphersof the Calcutta school, and that it was often Mackenzie
from whom the informationflowed in these intellectual exchanges. Thus, he
appearsto have been in correspondencewith Henry Colebrookefrom at least
as early as 1800, and indeed, a significantnumberof the inscriptionspublished
by Colebrooke in Asiatic Researches had been provided by Mackenzie from
among the materials he had collected. For example, among the inscriptions
translatedand discussed by Colebrookein his article"OnAncient Monuments,
containing Sanscrit Inscriptions,"published in Asiatic Researches in 1807,
therearefive fromthe Mysore countrywhich were providedto him by Macken-
zie.34 Mackenzie also correspondedwith CharlesWilkins in London, promis-
ing in October 1808 to send Wilkins "the alphabetof the HallaCanaracharac-
32 The first estimate is H. H. Wilson's, from his catalogue of the Mackenzie collection (Wilson
1828). The second is AlexanderCunningham's,writingin 1871 as the first DirectorGeneralof the
newly institutedArchaeological Survey of India (Cunningham1871:xxix).
33 C. P. Brown notes that of the other two collections he consulted in the compilation of his
Cyclic Tables(see discussion below), one included 595 inscriptions(the collection assembled by
WalterElliot in the southernMarathacountry),and the other "aboutthreehundred"(the collection
made by "CaptainNewbold, anotherzealous antiquarian"[Brown 1863:iv]). This makes Macken-
zie's collection at least twelve times largerthan either of the others that was available to Brown.
34 These includedan originalcopperplate fromChitradurga,a facsimile of a second copperplate
from the same site, an original stone inscriptionfrom Kurugodu,and copies of two copper plates
fromNidigal and Goujda(Colebrooke1807:398-453; see nos. III,IV,andVIII).Colebrooke'shigh
estimationof his colleague in Madrasis revealedby his gracious acknowledgementof Mackenzie,
whom he characterizedas "a gentleman,whose zeal for literaryresearch,and indefatigableindus-
try in the prosecutionof inquiries,cannotbe too much praised"(1807:430).

ter"thathis team hadjust deciphered.35He also made his inscriptionsavailable

to contemporariesinvolved in the study of India's history and languages, in-
cluding his friend MarkWilks, who used the "extensive and valuable collec-
tion" in Madrasas source materialfor his Historical Sketches of the South of
India (1810),36 and A. D. Campbell,who appealedto the authorityof inscrip-
tions in the collection to confirm the chronology of the Vijayanagarakings,
whose succession he summarizedin the introductionto his A Grammarof the
TeloogooLanguage (1820).37
Even afterMackenzie'sdeath,it is clear thatthe collection of inscriptionsre-
mained accessible in Madras.One prominentscholar who used Mackenzie's
epigraphicmaterialslaterin the nineteenthcenturywas CharlesPhilip Brown,
who is rememberedtoday primarilyfor his work on Telugulanguageandliter-
ature.In additionto his literaryresearches,however, Brown also producedan
importantwork on Indianchronology, published originally in 1850 as Cyclic
Tablesof Hindu and MahomedanChronology,and revised in 1863 underthe
new title of CarnaticChronology,the Hinduand MahomedanMethodsofReck-
oning TimeExplained. In both versions of the work, Brown openly acknowl-
edges his indebtednessto the epigraphicmaterialscollected by Mackenzie.In
the prefaceto Cyclic Tables,Brown explains thathe first encounteredMacken-
zie's historicalmaterialsin the collection of the College of Madras,wherethey
had been placed when the Governmenthad acquiredthem after Mackenzie's
death.Although Brown's first interests in Mackenzie's collection were in the
more properly "literary"works and local records, he became encouragedto
study the inscriptionsas well after reading H. H. Wilson's 1828 catalogue of
the Mackenzie collection, and learning that the inscriptionswere "morethan
seven thousandfive hundredin number"(Brown 1850[1994]:iii-iv). Brown
used these inscriptionsas the primarysources for determiningthe regnaldates
of the various kings and dynasties that featured in his "Cyclic Tables"that
35 Mackenzieto CharlesWilkins,Esq., 25 Oct. 1808 (OIOCMackenzieGeneralcollection, vol.

18 (recensionA, bound in before p. 279).
36 In describingthe variouscategories of sources he had employed, Wilks writes of "theexten-
sive and valuablecollection of grants,generallyof a religious nature,inscribedon stone or copper,
which are in the possession of my friendLieutenant-ColonelColin Mackenzie of the corps of en-
gineers on the establishmentof Fort St. George. These ancientdocumentsare of a singularlycuri-
ous texture;they almost always fix the chronology,and frequentlyunfold the genealogy and mili-
tary history of the donor and his ancestors,with all that is remarkablein theircivil institutions,or
religious reforms;and the facts derivedfrom these inscriptionsare illustratedby a voluminouscol-
lection of manuscripts,which can only be trustedwith confidence, so far as they are confirmedby
these authenticdocuments. ... at the periodof my departurefromMadras,[thiscollection]amount-
ed to nearone thousandseven hundredgrants,and six hundredMSS" (Wilks 1810[1930], I:xxv).
37 Campbell writes, "I am indebted to the friendship of that able and distinguished officer
Colonel McKenzie C. B. of the MadrasEngineers,now SurveyorGeneralof India,for the follow-
ing translationof an extract from the GutpurteeManuscriptin his valuable and extensive collec-
tion, containing,in the form of a prophecy,a chronologicalaccount of these kings. Numerousin-
scriptions, and grants of land, in the possession of Colonel McKenzie confirm the correctnessof
this account"(1820:xi, my emphasis).

formedthe core of the book. In the laterversion of this work, Brown furtherun-
derscoreshis dependenceupon Mackenzie-and seemingly expresses admira-
tion for his predecessor-by appending a "Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel
Colin Mackenzie,"adaptedfromthe sketchgiven in the prefaceto Wilson's cat-
alogue (Brown 1863:88).38
In terms of the institutionalhistory of Indianepigraphy,it is especially im-
portantto recognize that Alexander Cunninghamwas familiar with Macken-
zie's work, for it was under Cunningham'sdirection that the Archaeological
Survey of Indiawas established,dedicatedto the systematic explorationof In-
dia to locate, document,and preservethe materialvestiges of the country'san-
cient past-including, of course,inscriptions.AlthoughCunninghammentions
Mackenzie only in passing-referring to "Mackenzie's great collection of
8,076 inscriptions"in the context of his 1871 summaryof earlierstudies of In-
dian antiquities-the very organizationand conception of the archaeological
departmenthe founded suggests an inspirationin Mackenzie's earlier Survey
of Mysore. Thus, in his 1861 memorandumproposingthe establishmentof the
Survey, Cunninghamlamented that most earlierinvestigations of India's past
had been "dueto the unaidedefforts of privateindividuals,"and thatas a result
they had always been "desultoryand unconnectedand frequentlyincomplete"
(1871 :iv). What was now needed, opined Cunningham,was an officially spon-
sored governmentundertaking,as scientific and systematicas the Trigonomet-
rical Survey of India (the great imperial cartographicenterpriselaunched at
mid-centuryunderthe auspices of the Survey of India), which would not only
concern itself with the surveying of sites and documentationof buildings and
monuments,but would also extend to the systematiccollection of inscriptions
(throughthe preparationof "carefulfacsimiles"), coins, and even local tradi-
tions preservedorally at each site (1871:iv, viii). The parallelwith Mackenzie's
earlierprojectis striking,both in Cunningham'semphasison a systematicmode
of collection organized through what is essentially a cartographicparadigm
(thus, the ArchaeologicalSurveyof India), and in his emphasis on inscriptions
as one class of material evidence (together with coins, buildings, and other
monuments),which "in the almost total absence of any written history, form
the only reliable sources of informationas to the early condition of the coun-
try" (1871:iii). Although Mackenzie had been dead for fifty years by the time
Cunninghamwas writing, the value of his systematic approachto the collec-
tion of inscriptionsand other antiquitieswas now being affirmedin the estab-
lishment of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Within a few years, by
1883, the ASI would establish a special epigraphicbranchdedicatedto the sys-
tematic survey and collection of inscriptions,the immediate forerunnerof to-
day's Chief Epigraphist'sOffice in Mysore. That the office of this direct de-
38 I am indebted to Peter Schmitthennerfor calling my attention to Brown's reliance upon

Mackenzie's materials.See Schmitthenner2001.

scendentof Mackenzie'ssurvey shouldbe located in the capitalof the statethat

had been the focus of his statisticalsurvey,is a fitting-if unintentional-trib-
ute to the importanceof Mackenzie's collaborativeprojectto the development
of epigraphyas a systematicdiscipline.
The second significant product of the Mackenzie project was equally un-
precedented,and took the form of a manuscriptvolume titled "Registerof a
Collection of Ancient Sassanumsor Grantsand Inscriptionson Public Monu-
ments .. ." and dated 31 December 1807. Althoughit was never published,the
"Register"is preservedin two slightly differentmanuscriptcopies, bothhoused
in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library.39In this
work,Mackenzieandhis collaboratorscompiled a "register"for the some 1100
inscriptionsthat they had collected up to that point. In tabularform, the regis-
ter summarizesthe attributesand contents of each inscriptionunderthe head-
ings "Date when Received," "GrantersNames and Reigning Sovereigns,"
"PlaceWhereThey are Preserved,""Language,""Character," "Dateof the In-
scription(Cyclic Year; Sakum era date)," "To whom Granted," "The subjects
and contents of the grantsand inscriptions"and "Remarksand Observations."
The register is precededby an index to the inscriptionsarrangedalphabetical-
ly by the name of the reigning king (this is present only in the "recensionB"
copy), andis followed by an appendix,containing"copiesof Facsimiles,Trans-
lations, and Drawings of some of the Inscriptionsregistered"(the "recension
A" copy has a complete set of facsimiles; while "recensionB" includes only
one). In his introductionto the "Register,"Mackenzie sketches out a typology
of inscriptions,distinguishingbetween"Sassanums,""Danapatrum," and"Nero-
opum," by virtue of such factors as contents and purpose, and also with refer-
ence to the materialstypically used, whether stone or copper plates. Detailed
observationsare also made on the general formatsand conventions employed
in the varioustypes of inscriptions,as well as on the identitiesof the languages
and charactersused, and the dynasties who issued them.
The Mackenzie "Register"must be recognized as nothing less thanthe first
syntheticoverview of the subjectof Indianepigraphy,producedat a time when
the Calcuttaepigrapherswere still focusing their efforts on the decipherment
of earlierscriptsand the translationand interpretationof individualepigraphic
records.Comparedto anythinghis Calcuttacontemporarieshad yet produced,
the Mackenzie "Register"is not only vastly more detailed, but also far more
"emic"in its awarenessof the culturalpurposes originally served by inscrip-
tions. Although the specific contents of Mackenzie's overview would soon
enough be renderedobsolete as epigraphicstudy advancedstill further(com-
pare,for example, the far more detailed account in A. C. Burnell's Elementsof
South-IndianPalaeography, 1878), it is interestingto note that theformat it
adoptedlives on in countless epigraphicpublicationseven today. Withits tab-
39 British Library,OIOCEur.mss., Mackenzie General,vol. XVIII (recensionsA and B).

ular analysis of the contents and attributesof multiple inscriptions,with its in-
dex by reigning king, and with its graphicreproductionof selected facsimiles,
it mustbe recognized as the directprecursorof such epigraphicpublicationsas
the AnnualReports on Indian Epigraphyand similartabularcompilations.
CONCLUSION
Clearly,the continuedpreservationandaccessibility of boththe epigraphiccor-

pus and the analytical"Register"must be kept in mind as we attemptto under-
standthe Mackenzie project and assess the natureof its impact upon the sub-
sequentdevelopmentof the epigraphicdisciplinein the laternineteenthcentury.
But in the end, we must also rememberthat the productsof this dialogue were
not limited simply to collections, archives, and texts, but extended as well to
the new ways of thinking that had arisen in the minds of all who had partici-
pated in this fruitfulintellectualconversation.Among the twenty-some Niyo-
gis who had helped formulatethe new epigraphicmethods, some, at least, con-
tinued to practicethe new forms of epigraphicand historicalknowledge even
afterthe close of Mackenzie'sprojectin 1818. Some of them continuedto seek
opportunitiesfor employment within the colonial government;thus, Cavelly
VenkataLakshmiahwent on to assist H. H. Wilson in producingthe catalogue
of the various Mackenzie collections, and when Wilson succeeded in deci-
pheringthe ancientcentralIndian"box-headedscript"datingback to the fourth
century,it was with the help of Sri VermaSuri, who had been one of Macken-
zie's Jain assistants.40Others,however, went on to practice the new forms of
colonial knowledge themselves, without dependingon the direct patronageof
the colonial state.Here,the best documentedcase is providedby the subsequent
careerof Cavelly VenkataRamaswamy,who put many of the project'smateri-
als-including the work producedby NarrainRow-to good use in writinghis
Descriptiveand Historical Sketchesof Cities and Places in the Dekkan,which
he published in Calcuttaby subscriptionin 1828. Interestinglyenough, Ra-
maswamy's entry on Warangal("Ekasilanagar")is based almost entirely on
NarrainRow's unpublishedlettersandreportsfromthe Mackenziearchive,and
on some of the materialshe had collected in Warangalin 1816.41
As for NarrainRow and the otherlesser-knownassistants,what they did af-
ter the close of the collaborationwith Mackenzie remains shroudedin dark-
ness-at least in the present state of our knowledge. Perhapsa more thorough
examinationof the colonial archivemay eventuallyshed some light on theirlat-
er activities, as is suggested by the following note of WalterElliott, explaining
the provenanceof a historicalmanuscriptthat had come into his collection in
40
This deciphermentwas published in Asiatic Researches 15 (1825): 499-515, according to
Salomon (1998:203).
41 See Ramaswami1828:13 and
comparewith NarrainRow's Reportfor the periodApril to Au-
gust 1816 (OIOCMackenzieTranslationsClass XII: no. 47) and letterto C. V. LechmyahBramin,
datedUrungole 1 Aug. 1816 (OIOCMackenzieTranslationsClass XII: no. 49).

Januaryof 1844: "This statementwas sent to me by Mr. Dighton who rented

the WarangalDistricts from the Nizam for several years. It was preparedby a
Braminin his service who had beenformerly employedby Col. Mackenzie."42
Perhapseven more promisingly,an examinationof laternineteenth-centurylit-
eraturein Telugu may some day yield works producedby formerMackenzie
Niyogis who opted not to work in English, but in the lingua francaof theirown
social class. In any case, it is clear that out of the collaborationwith Macken-
zie, a new class of Niyogis had emerged, small at first, but clearly capable of
replicatingitself 43andapplyingthe new mode of colonial knowledgeto its own
ends, long afterthe close of Mackenzie's project.
Hopefully, this essay has demonstratedthat Mackenzie's Niyogi assistants
broughtfar more to the collaborationthan has previously been suspected.Far
from being mere passive informants,they contributedactively to the produc-
tion of new epigraphicknowledge, and more fundamentally,even to the defi-
nition of epigraphyitself as a methodfor historicalenquiry.The intellectualdi-
42 OIOC MSS Eur.

D327, inside, opposite p. 1, emphasisadded;for the dating,see OIOCMSS
Eur.F. 46, which is a slightly revised translationof the same text.
43 One strikingpatternthatemerges from NarrainRow's correspondencerelatesto his training
and "subcontracting"of other Niyogis who were not formally in Mackenzie's employ. On more
than one occasion, NarrainRow found himself unable to complete his objectives on schedule,
whetherdue to illness and logistical difficulties, or simply because of the overabundanceof mate-
rials encountered.His answer to this dilemma was to befriendlocal Niyogis who sharedhis gen-
eral literateskills and sensibilities,and to hire them as his personalassistantsaftertrainingthem in
the new methodsof historicalandepigraphicenquiry.Thus, on one occasion, betweenJanuaryand
March of 1811, we find NarrainRow referringin his reportsto a local CuddapahNiyogi named
LetchmenRow, at first in the capacityof a generalfactotumand go-between, and thenas an active
deputy engaged in the makingof paleographicallyaccuratetranscriptionsof epigraphswhen Nar-
rain Row was incapacitateddue to fever. See NarrainRow's reportfor the year 1811 (Mackenzie
TranslationsClass XII, no. 26). In his entry for 23 January,he notes that "as I am unableeven to
get up, I told Letchmen Row to copy those inscriptionsof the above mentionedplace. He copied
according to the original" [i.e., he made an accuratehand-copy reproducingtheir paleographic
form; my italics].
Later,in 1818, we learnthatNarrainRow had at least two local Niyogis in his employ when he
was working in the Hyderabadterritories;one of these, whom he refers to as "myGoomashta"
VenkatRow, had evidently provento be such a quick study-Narrain Row notes thathe is a "very
clever man"-that he was able to make some very significantcollections of old Kannadainscrip-
tions andhistoricaltexts in the regionaroundGulbargaandMalkhed.For NarrainRow's references
to VenkatRow, see MackenzieMiscellaneous, 174 (68 [par.4]; 69 [par.5]; 74 [par.2]; and 75 [par.
2]). The Madrasoffice appearsto have disapprovedof NarrainRow's earlierhiringof Letchmen
Row-C. VenkataLakshmaihwrote to NarrainRow in Marchof 1811 "withan orderto discharge
the said LetchmenRow" (MackenzieTranslations,class XII: 26 [entryfor 8 Mar.]).But it eventu-
ally concurredwith NarrainRow's estimationof VenkatRow, and engaged him to continuemak-
ing collections even after the bulk of the collecting activity was completed and Mackenzie'ses-
tablishmenthad shifted to Calcutta.See the five letters of "VenkatRao employed at Hydrabad"
(Translations,class XII, no. 16; note thatthis designationapparentlyserves to distinguishhim from
a differentVenkatRao who workedfurthersouth in the Tamilcountry).Of particularinterestis that
NarrainRow's assistantVenkatRow in turnemployed his own assistant,suggesting that the seg-
mentarymode favoredby Niyogis for organizingtheirlaborwould likely have contributedstill fur-
ther to the spreadof the new forms of colonial knowledge among the membersof this precolonial
intellectualclass.

INTELLECTUALS AND THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE 8II
alogue through which epigraphy emerged in colonial Madras was a particular-

ly productive one, as Mackenzie, with his cartographic and statistical approach
to the past, engaged in conversation with his Niyogi collaborators, with their
critical awareness of the diachronic and pragmatic aspects of language, and
their impressive abilities to digest and synthesize data from great masses of oth-
erwise discrete documents and records. Indeed, it was the vital quality of this
intellectual dialogue that made the Madras school of epigraphy both more pro-
gressive than that of its Calcutta counterpart, and more central to the subsequent
definition of the discipline in the later nineteenth century.
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Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

Precolonial Intellectuals and the Production of Colonial Knowledge

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0010-4175/03/783-814 $9.50 ? 2003 Societyfor ComparativeStudyof SocietyandHistory

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host of colonial forms of knowledge-ranging from more clearly administra-

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has suggestedthatthe position arguedby ArjunAppadurai--namely,thatcaste-

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the other, that "like a computerprogramapplied to an input streamof data,

The present essay attemptsto furtherdevelop this "collaborationist"model,

1 Whatwouldseemto bethesoleexceptionis DaudAli'sbriefappendix,on "Archaeology and

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While the inscriptionsthemselves were presentand availablelong before the

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velopmentof epigraphy,it is nonethelessunderstoodto have been largelya sec-

Such a scenariomay very well have been truefor Calcutta,but thingswerequite

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FrancisWhyte Ellis and his Indiancollaboratorswent against the official doc-

8 In a similar vein, Peter Schmitthennerhas identified differencesrelatingto sponsorship,pro-

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The "statistical account" requested by Wellesley effectively mandated that

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MACKENZIE'S INDIAN COLLABORATORS

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book (Pakasdstra, otherwise called Sfipas'astra,or the Modern Culinary

'5 Apartfromthe logistical difficultiesposed by the originalsandtheirtranslationsbeinghoused

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16 Cohn also presentsa

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The point of these criticisms is in no way to belittle the importantcontribu-

sented to NarrainRow by the brahmin;52v.-59r. are taken up by NarrainRow's own antiquarian

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NIYOGIS AT THE ARCOT COURT

Before turningto some of the details of NarrainRow's personal background

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From a traditionalperspective,the salaried,administrativeemploymentem-

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eight (or 64 percent)areidentifiableas Niyogis on the basis of theirnames.The

NARRAIN ROW AND HIS COLLABORATION WITH MACKENZIE

24 I have provideda more detaileddiscussion of these distinctbodies of evidence and theirbear-

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of such sites as Ellora andWarangal,and collected hundredsupon hundredsof

26 The statisticalaccount of Ahmadnagaris titled "ParticularAccount of the Agriculture,Pro-

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can be detected.Both Mackenzie and his Niyogis acceptedthe propositionthat

Row who workedwith Mackenzie).The termgumashtadesignateda personal"assistant,""agent,"

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guages and the culturesthey embodied, to arriveat an overarchingtheoretical

[Q:]Do youknowin whosehand-writing theswadontheaccountcurrentandsowalis?

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[Q:]Thenhowdo youknowthesecharacters to be thehand-writing

30 See "specimennumber3" of the facsimiles in the "recensionA"

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and breakage.But this problemmay readily be surmountedby extending this

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pandingterritorialholdingsis so well known, it might appearthatthe mereSaka

MADRAS VERSUS CALCUTTA: THE IMPACT OF THE

To those familiar with the history of epigraphicstudies in nineteenth-century

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If Mackenzie was able to move beyond the Calcuttaorientalistsin conceiv-

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