The Colas c9.40

c9.40

18. *ARE.* 1902, I 8 and G.O. (Madras) 763 Public, 6th August 1902. After drawing attention to the destruction of the Kalinari Īśvara by the inhabitants of Tirunāmanallūr, the government epigraphist says in his report: 'The Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Chetties are spending year by year a portion of their large earnings in repairing the ancient Śiva temples of Southern India. In the course of these "repairs" they have totally destroyed the following shrines with every one of their inscriptions: The Ēkāmranātha temple at Conjeevaram, the Jambukēśvara temple on the island of Śrīraṅgam, the central shrine of the temple at Tiruvuṇṇāmalai, the same at Tiruveṇṇainallūr in South Arcot and the same at Tiruppugalūr in the Tanjore District. Of some of the inscriptions in the first two temples, I have inked estampages in my office. The remainder are lost for ever, as the inscribed stones have been dressed again before rebuilding the temples. Many other temples are now going to be treated in the same manner.' Government declined to restrict the activities of renovators by the issue of prohibitory orders as suggested by the epigraphical department which thereupon made 'a more vigorous attempt to secure impressions of the inscriptions thus threatened with destruction.' This has led to the accumulation of thousands of impressions in the epigraphist's office which have little chance, as things stand, of being published in any reasonable period even in the bald form adopted in *SII.* (Texts). There is also a real danger that in the race between publication and collection, collection might suffer without publication gaining adequately.