Colonel Colin Mackenzie’s name is irrevocably linked to the huge collection of Oriental manuscripts, local histories, charts, maps, sketches, coins, paintings, icons and other artefacts that have a bearing on India’s history and culture. Mackenzie was a Scottish army officer in the British East India company who became the first Surveyor General of India. It was he who produced the first authentic geographical map of south India.
He recorded local histories, inscriptions, religious practices, festivals and social etiquette. Mackenzie’s collections are prized possessions in several museums and libraries both in England and in India.
Colin Mackenzie was born in a prominent family in Stornoway, on the Island of Lewis, in northern Scotland in 1754. After working for a short time as comptroller of the Customs, he secured a Commission in the East India Company’s army and joined as a cadet of Engineers in Madras in September, 1783.
He served as a military engineer, in the campaigns against Tipu Sultan during the Third Mysore war. The sketches he prepared on the eve of the war indicating the position of the British Batteries, were highly complimented by Lord Cornwallis the Governor General who conducted the war to a success. Mackenzie worked his way to become a Major and then a Colonel. He was for some time sent to Hyderabad to survey and prepare the map of Nizam’s dominions. He then worked as commanding Engineer for some time in Ceylon and returned in 1796.
After Tipu’s defeat in 1799, Mackenzie was asked to survey Mysore territories as well as the Ceded districts which the Nizam of Hyderabad handed over to the British in 1800. This permitted Mackenzie to have a large team of interpreters, draftsmen and illustrators through whom he collected a fund of information on natural history, geography, architecture, local history, social customs and folk tales in the Mysore and Rayalaseema regions.
Local Pundits :
One of Mackenzie’s chief interpreters was the versatile Kavali Venkata Burriah who knew Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit. Mackenzie acknowledged the help of Burriah, who he said, “ introduced into the portals of Indian Knowledge”. After Burriah’s untimely death in 1803, Mackenzie took his equally competent younger brother, Kavali Lakshmaiah, who had a long and enduring association with him. Another Mackenzie’s renowned assistant was Melur Dharmaiah, an expert in reading Hale (old) Kannada. There were also a number of other interpreters whom he liberally patronized.
The magnitude of Mackenzie’s labour can be gauged from the number of items that form part of his vast collection. The total number of the inscriptions that he collected exceeded 8,000. The manuscripts in about 13 languages, including Burmese and Javanese were 1,500. Local tracts, known as Sthalapuranas were 2159. The annals or Ballads were more than 2000 and their translations into English ran to 75 volumes. The maps and drawings accounted for 2,630 to be very precise, plus 79 plans. Coins of different dynasties in gold, silver and copper were to the tune of 6000. The exquisite icons and sculptures were 146. Mackenzie’s is considered the most extensive collection of historical documents related to India ever made by a single individual in Europe or in India.
Mackenzie was the first to bring to light the rich architectural heritage of the Vijayanagara ruins at Hampi. As part of his survey, he visited that site in 1799 and got a few water colour paintings of the monuments. The pencil sketch map of Hampi site Mackenzie drew is preserved as a part of a folio in British Museum. He also visited Amaravathi, the ancient Buddhist site near Guntur and made several sketches of the sculptures. His sketches and maps on Mahabalipuram in 25 volumes, are now in Asia Pacific Collections in British Library. Mackenzie is also credited with precise measuring of the gigantic statue of Gomateswara at Sravanabelagola.
Mackenzie was deputed to Java on survey work during 1811-1813 after it came under the British occupation. While in Java he married Petronella Jacomina, a Dutch lady in November, 1812. On return, he was appointed as Surveyor General of India in 1815, a post newly created with headquarters at Calcutta. However, he was allowed to stay in Madras till 1818 to complete his survey of south India . He moved to Calcutta with his vast collections in an exclusive ship, Sophia provided by government. He took along with him, Kavali Lakshmaiah.
Mackenzie died in Calcutta on 8 May, 1821 without returning to his place of birth even once. The government purchased his entire collections from his widow for a sum of Rs.1 lakh as assessed by a Law firm, Palmer & Co, as a “reasonable reimbursement.”
After Mackenzie’s death, Lakshmaiah stayed on in Calcutta for two years to help H.H. Wilson an Orientalist, in cataloguing the collections. Petronella, however remarried to a Company army officer, Robert Fulchner in 1823, went and settled in England.
The entire Mackenzie collections were dispatched in batches to England during 1823- 33. However, on Wilson’s recommendation, most of the manuscripts in south Indian languages were sent to Madras in 1828. The antiquities he collected ranging from coins to monumental sculptures are now in British museum and Victoria & Albert museum, London.
Much of Mackenzie’s collection of the Palm leaf manuscript volumes are preserved at the Government Oriental Manuscript Library and Research Centre, at the University of Madras. This Library was founded in 1869 primarily to house Mackenzie’s collection. Till then they were kept in Madras Presidency College Library.
The present descendants of Mackenzie’s brother Alexander Mackenzie (1740-1810 ) and sister, Mary Mackenzie (1747- 1827) in association with the local Stornoway Historical Society, plan to hold an exhibition on the life and legacy of Colin Mackenzie at the Lewis Castle in 2017.
A two floored, seashore mansion, “Carn House” that Mary built with the money Mackenzie sent from India, but later bequeathed to her, stand testimony to Mackenzie’s strong familial contacts.
A memorial stone slab that Mary got erected in his honour in their family mausoleum, is another link to the memory of this proud son of Stornoway, who collected a mountain of manuscripts in India.
