Excavating Bhu-Khaate

1898 to 1930

Artist: Pushpamala. N, Copperplate Grant, Year: 17th Cent. 

Unknown copper plates (IR 3), verso of plate 2, found in Bangalore Karnataka, South India. Found during the expansion of Basavanagudi, Bangalore during the plague in the late 19th century and early 20th.

This plate could be dated to the middle of the 17th century. Historians suspect that it could be the Kannada translation of Tipu Sultan’s Hukmnamas related to accounts and land grant regulations of the time. Inhabitants believe that it belongs to a merchant from Basavanagudi, near the Bull Temple which was surrounded by farmland that mainly grew peanuts.

 

 

Regulations of Tippoo Sultan.

23.6 x 18.6 cm (book measurement) This volume is a Kannada translation of one of Tipu’s Huknamas
relating to the accounts and land grants of a monastery.

Pictures for representation purposes only. Courtesy: Internet
https://www.rct.uk/collection/1005094/regulations-of-tippoo-sultan

The story to be told began exactly 100 years ago. The Great Plague of 1898 had wreaked havoc in the city of Bangalore. Numerous new localities were built and upto 3,500 people relocated. As Bangalore's landscape started changing, glimpses of the rise of a ‘new metro, a new urban’ could be seen throughout.

A century later, we see ourselves once again in the same situation. Covid - 19 has replaced the Great Plague. How the landscape will change now is unpredictable. Has the promised metro of the early 20th century grown to its adulthood in the early 21st century?

Our timeline starts with the claim of the so-called "Benguluru" which seems to have existed much before Kempe Gowda’s time (1569 , when the four towers of Kempe Gowda were built ). While not proven, it is believed that the earliest reference to the name "Benguluru" was found in a ninth-century Western Ganga Dynasty stone inscription on a "vīra gallu" (literally, "hero-stone", a rock edict extolling the virtues of a warrior). This inscription of the Ganga subordinate Nagattara mentions Bengaluru as a place and the carving is of a battle fought in 900 CE. It records the death of Pervona-setti, a house-son of Nagattara, as also of Buttanapati, son of Nagattara. The inscription and the battle have no connection - two different contexts.

 

Western Ganga Dynasty stone inscription on a "vīra gallu"
Photographer Henry Dixon, 1865

Photograph of a stone slab with a relief sculpture of a battle scene, and a Kanarese inscription above,

from Begur in Karnataka from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections: India Office Series 

(volume 21, 'a' numbers),

taken by Henry Dixon in the 1860s. Begur is a village south of Bangalore which has two twin granite temples,

probably dating from the end of the Western Ganga Dynasty period, eleventh century.

Pictures for representation purposes only. Courtesy: Internet

In 1898 during the plague, in a hurry to create better infrastructure to contain the disease, the British administrators decided to develop better sanitation in the new areas of Basavanagudi, Malleshwaram, and Frazer Town. The excavations which were conducted to build the new localities became the foundation of the new urban - the promising city and the new fast-growing metro. The digging and construction also found many artifacts and ‘Vira-gallus’ and ‘Sati stones’ from many dynasties.

Bangalore was continuously under many ruling families, From Ganga, Rastrakuta Bana, Nolamba, Hoysala, Chola, Vijayanagara, Nayaja, Maratha, Kempe Gowda, Mysore Wodeyars. Many copperplate land grants were found which have references to many deeds and loans; ownership of land by farmers, rich merchants, and moneylenders. Many were written in Halegannada (Old Kannada), Bhattiprolu Telugu and Vatteluttu script, and the Damili or Tamili, Tamil Brahmi script. The discoveries continue till recent times with researchers and historians looking at early settlements which cannot yet be enough evidence to establish well-grounded facts.