Know Your City: How Bengaluru’s Mythic Society is working to bring a piece of Karnataka’s heritage to light

While the Kadamba project under the Mythic Society began in November, with permission being obtained from the Archaeological Survey of India, the actual survey began in March.

The Kadamba inscriptions are largely in the Southern Brahmi script. “Almost all of them have to do with royalty. These are the very early years when inscriptions were typically only commissioned by royalty. The practice of merchants setting them up, or other people had not yet come about. Most of these Kadamba inscriptions are donations to temples or Brahmins by the king of the time,” Kumar noted.

A typical day in the digitisation effort entails a team of volunteers uploading data from the field to the servers in Bengaluru, where another team would work on it. Often, dozens of gigabytes of data are transmitted in a single day. Sixteen inscriptions have been digitised so far, with another four set to be completed in the future.

However, many locals do not seem to be aware of the background of these ancient pieces of history. “That is the tragedy. They know it is something old, but that is all. That is also why we are sharing the information – we have made some video clips that we have shared with the villagers there to hopefully improve the awareness,” Kumar said.

While all the inscriptions have their own historical value, Kumar shared a few details regarding some of them. “There are two inscriptions on the pillar in Malavalli, separated by 100 years. In this time, the forms of the characters had changed. Another inscription in a place called Talagunda details the establishment of the Kadamba dynasty, relating the tale of a Brahmin who was abused by soldiers in Kanchi and decided to pick up a sword,” Kumar explains.