Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s20.11

c8.s20.11

In Cg 17 are recorded the erection and endowment of the Ōnkārēśvara temple at Mercāra in 1820 by the first Linga-Rāja. The building was commenced, it is said, on the 1,796,362nd Kali day, and completed on the 1,797,421st. A curious account of an elephant hunt in the time of the last Vīra-Rāja is given in Cg 25. Elephants having increased in numbers to such a degree that they were destroying fruit trees and crops, killing travellers, and damaging houses, the king considered it part of his duty as protector of his people to rid them of these troubles. He therefore, after invoking the aid of Śiva, entered into the forests in a chariot made and painted like a lion (according to Hindu belief the natural enemy of the elephant), and in the course of 2 years, 1 month and 25 days, between 1822 and 1824, disposed of 414 elephants. The actual days on which they were hunted were 38, and in those days he claims to have shot with his own hand 233, while his trained soldiers captured 181 alive, and “it was a marvel that men should catch stout and lofty rutting elephants as if they were mice.”