Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c2.7

c2.7

It was in 1865, when Mr. L. Bowring, C.S.I., was Chief Commissioner of Mysore and Coorg, that the services of Major Dixon, an officer skilled in the new art of photography, were engaged to obtain copies by that process of inscriptions in various places easily accessible, where they were known to be numerous, such as Chitaldroog, Harihar, Belgāmi, and the north-west. These, numbering 150, were, in the then imperfect state of the art, taken on a scale so reduced that they could only be read with a magnifying glass, and even so, owing to insufficient cleansing and preparation of the originals, with difficulty. The photographs, however, were eventually, after other efforts to deal with them, placed in my hands for decipherment of the ancient characters and for translation in such leisure time as could be found from my regular duties. My only qualifications for the work were a knowledge of the language and the country. Otherwise it was new to me, and the task was not an easy one, as I was already engaged on extra duty in compiling the first edition of the *Gazetteers of Mysore and Coorg*, published in 1877. But by 1879 I contrived to bring out, in a volume called *Mysore Inscriptions*, translations of all those photographed as above, and of some other inscriptions collected by myself. Archæology had now become a hobby.