How Bengaluru is preserving its stone inscriptions

A citizen-led initiative aims to preserve, and digitally document, Bengaluru's stone inscriptions in the face of rampant urbanisation

As history buffs began to make frequent visits to Ganigarahalli, a village in Bengaluru, residents started to believe that these visitors were “treasure hunters”. There was treasure indeed, but not in the sense the villagers had imagined. The visitors were trying to decipher the inscriptions on a stone slab that had been lying in the village for decades. 

Abandoned and weather-worn, this stone, which the residents believed had instructions that pointed to treasure, was itself the prize. The writing on it is hard to read: it’s from the era of the Chola kings, one of the longest-ruling dynasties in southern India. 

“Many of these stones have been lying untouched for years together in and around Bengaluru, but people still think we’re treasure hunters even though these stones were first documented over a 100 years ago,” says Vinay Kumar, an aerospace engineer and “innovation coach” at a city-based engineering college. He is part of a citizen’s initiative which aims to drum up awareness about such stones that lie dotted across city limits. Public attitudes to these stones range from fevered reverence to utter indifference. 

The project was born out of need: in modern-day Bengaluru, a startling 70 per cent of these inscription-stones are believed to have been lost. There were reportedly over 170 such inscriptions in the city.  

After the British appointed him Director of the Mysore Archaeological Department, epigraphist Benjamin Lewis Rice published 12 volumes of Epigraphia Carnatica between 1894 and 1905. These books document over 9,000 inscriptions that he had encountered riding horseback across the Old Mysore region.

Only about 25-30 of these stones remain in the area, says Udaya Kumar P L, an industrial automation engineer and a passionate history buff who kicked off the project five-six months ago. One of these stones was supposed to be located a few hundred metres from Udaya Kumar’s residence in Bengaluru’s Rajajinagar; Rice had recorded the location at an outlet of a lake. “When I went looking for that stone, I couldn’t find it anywhere, and there hasn’t been a lake here for decades,” he says. 

A ‘hero stone’ in Begur, Bengaluru

Project founder Udaya Kumar P L with a young student

Dated to the 1300s, this stone spoke about Harihara 1, or Hakka, founder of the Vijayanagara empire, and featured the names of villages now buried in modern-day Rajajinagar. “Most of us were under the impression that our locality was 70-80 years old, but the stone’s documentation proves that it’s at least 700 years old,” adds Udaya Kumar. 

“These stones help us understand the lives of the people of the time they were inscribed in,” says historian and epigraphist P V Krishnamurthy, a “treasure hunter” who often accompanies the two Kumars and helps them decipher weather-beaten inscriptions which are often in old Kannada. 

Inscriptions around the city have also been found in Tamil (these are credited to the Chola dynasty), Telugu (Vijayanagara empire), Marathi (the Maratha kings) and Persian (via Tipu Sultan). There’s even one in Chinese, engraved on a bell, which was reportedly brought in by the British.  

As primary historical records, these stones stand as silent witnesses to kings and chieftains gifting land, of regional heroes who died protecting their people, and are also documents of lakes and celestial events. “Most historical records now exist only as copies and more copies of those copies. We have records written on palm leaves, but these largely date back to only 500-600 years. These stones are thousands of years old,” remarks Krishnamurthy. 

The oldest of these stones includes one which historians date to 750 AD, to the time of a king called Shri Purusha of the Western Ganga dynasty; another stone documents a battle fought in 890 AD and notes the passing of a warrior called Buttanapathi. 

“These stones tell us about the traditions and languages used back then. They tell us about the rulers of the time and this information comes to us only through these stones because there are no other documents available,” says Krishnamurthy. 

Today, some of these stones lie buried under layers of kumkum, others are tucked away in dark spaces between residential buildings. There’s even one in an unofficial garbage dump and one in a gutter. 

“Knowingly and unknowingly people have destroyed these stones as they bought land and expanded territories,” says Krishnamurthy, pointing out that the loss of these historical artefacts is a direct result of indiscriminate urbanisation. “If we don’t do anything now, we’ll lose everything except for the few sitting in museums,” says Udaya Kumar.

Pictures and interactive 3D models of these inscriptions will be on display at Bengaluru’s Venkatappa Art Gallery at an exhibition called Bengaluru Nagara Shila Shasanagalu (Kannada for “Inscription Stones of Bengaluru”). The show is scheduled for mid-November, but the project will be ongoing. “It’s a fantastic example of civic activism,” says Vinay Kumar. 

Citizen-led activism comes in many forms. While Adappa Pasodi, a government school teacher and history enthusiast, takes his students on study tours featuring these stones, those enrolled with city-based Dayananda Sagar School of Architecture are designing shelters for the few stones that remain scattered across the city. These shelters will also invoke the aesthetic of the period they were built in: for instance, inscriptions from the Hoysala period may feature detailed carvings and those from the Western Ganga dynasty may see cylindrical or octagonal structures. 

To ensure access and documentation for posterity, the project also sees collaboration from Harish Pawaskar’s ReArk, an outfit that’s committed to developing interactive 3D models of these inscriptions. (Digitising Badami cave temples, Elephanta, and Ajanta and Ellora caves are some of ReArk’s previous projects.)  While visitors to the exhibition in Bengaluru will be able to see these models at the show, ReArk will soon make them available online, too. 

Many involved in the initiative believe these structures should not be removed to museums and away from their original sites because they provide a context to the places they are in. Besides, they bring to the communities a sense of belonging and ownership once they recognise their significance through citizen-awareness programmes, goes the argument. 

As archival landmarks, these stones come with their share of oral histories, but only a few remember what their grandparents have passed on to them. “Our societal structures have changed so much that we don’t have oral story-telling traditions anymore,” says Vinay Kumar. 

But where the original tales have faded away, urban legends have been strengthened by superstitions: there is often a line carved in at the end of the main message that warns of misfortune raining down on those who disturb these stones. “Such myths have helped preserve them, to an extent,” says Vinay Kumar, pointing out how some of these lie in prime properties. Only cautionary warnings, about harm coming to those who disturb it, have survived oral traditions. The “good parts” of the story, such as records of kings who donated lands and were especially charitable during solar eclipses, or of ancient do-gooding heroes, seem to have slipped from public consciousness.  

If the remaining stones are to survive, they’ll need more than superstition in their corner. It’s a challenge against apathy and urbanisation. But right from eager young students to engineers juggling day jobs and their passion for history, Bengaluru’s citizens have taken on the challenge headlong.