Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c2.1

c2.1

THE present volume is the outcome of researches extending over a number of years. All who have had to do with Mysore and Coorg know the attraction of their grand and varied natural features, their agreeable climate, and their interesting racial characteristics. Indeed, a Kannaḍa poet describes the Hoysala country, that is Mysore, especially the west, as a hand-mirror (or reflection) of Kashmir. Regions so inviting could never have been entirely secluded from the general current of public affairs, but stirring events of recent times had brought them more prominently to notice. Curiosity was thus awakened as to their past. For though their chronicles could perhaps be fairly retraced for about five centuries, earlier periods were more or less a blank. To supply this want it was recognised that an examination was imperative of the inscriptions to be met with in all parts, which furnish almost the only contemporary records for the various periods to which they relate.