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Discovering village antiquity

This is not particularly my field, but I got interested in Dr. R. Nagaswamy's latest book, Pathway to the Antiquity of Your Village, because in it he states that the over 30,000 inscriptions copied by the Madras and Tamil Nadu Governments over the last 100 years is the largest number copied by any State. Nevertheless, of the 30,000, only 9,000 have been read and published. The Government of Tamil Nadu has set up an Epigraphy Wing under its Department of Archaeology to speed up the reading and publication of the rest. These records, says Dr. Nagaswamy, are the most authentic record of the history of Tamil Nadu's villages. The records reveal how old each village is, what its names have been, who built the village's main temple and who endowed it subsequently, and what the economic, administrative, judicial, social and religious life of the village were like.

Also to be found in each of these inscriptions is information about the tanks, canals, land area, taxes and institutions in the village. Dr. Nagaswamy's latest book is an invaluable guide to these inscriptions, making easy the task of researchers and government departments seeking information about any particular village in the State. The Pathwaygives you the name in English and Tamil _ thereby clarifying pronunciation _ of the village where an inscription was found, the taluk it is in and, most significantly, the year in which the inscription was copied and entered in the Annual Report on Epigraphy (ARE). Each inscription has a number shown and this is the number allocated to it by the relevant ARE.

Also listed separately in Dr. Nagaswamy's guide are the 9,000 inscriptions that have been published in detail.

Many, and I am one of them, have bemoaned the fact that Indian historical records are scanty. Dr. Nagaswamy demonstrates with this guide that a considerable amount of information is available -- but that it is only now being made accessible.

S. MUTHIAH

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