Hyderabad: Historians, epigraphists and archaeologists stressed the urgent need for editing and publishing volumes on the inscriptions of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, undivided Adilabad and Khammam districts, which has not been done till now.
As part of the World Heritage Week events held by the Heritage Telangana department at the State Museum in Public Gardens on Saturday, November 23, a lecture was delivered by noted historian Dr D Surya Kumar on the importance of epigraphy in the context of understanding the history of Telangana.
He said that till now only 3,000 inscriptions had been estampaged and edited in the state, among which 2,400 have been scanned and digitised, and even 75 copper plate inscriptions have been scanned and digitised.
He said that though there were at least 400 inscriptions in the four districts where they have not been edited including those in Urdu, Telugu, Prakrit and in other languages in Hyderabad alone, no effort has been made to edit them, and in the undivided Adilabad district even survey of the inscriptions wasn’t done yet.
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“It is interesting to note that when there was a war between the Vijayanagara rulers and the Nizams, the vassals had all secretively decided to support the Nizams, and even this secret they issued as an order in an inscription form which is known as the Oggudala Sasanam,” he said, talking about why inscription are so important to reveal the lesser known aspects of the history.
He said that unlike the popular belief among the people that solar and lunar eclipses are considered inauspicious, many orders were issued (through inscriptions) in the history on the occasion of an eclipse.
He also said that though the Chaturvarna (4 varna caste system) was the order of the day in the olden days, in Telangana the inscriptions spoke only about 18 castes based on their artisanship.
Mentioning that inscriptions were generally issued whenever kings, queens, chieftains, or even common people were gifting something to someone, there were other inscriptions that were issued whenever any change of taxation, building irrigation tanks and other works were taken up.
He mentioned how the inscriptions issued by queens were very different from those issued by the kings and other males.
“Erukasanamma, the wife of Recharla Bethireddy, had gifted an entire village to run a residential school during the rule of Recharla Padmanayakas in Telangana. She had ordered that the expenses for clothing and food, and other necessities to run the residential school could be met from the income generated from the village which she had gifted,” he said.
He also spoke about how the Vijayanagara rulers had imposed a tax on both brides and bridegrooms for getting married in the Kadapa region, which had resulted in people refraining from getting married in one particular period, and how King Sadasivarayalu had to reverse the order by re-issuing the order through an inscription later.
He mentioned how the barbers were also taxed, resulting them leaving the kingdom and settling elsewhere, the reason why the kings later reversed the order in some parts of their kingdom in Kadapa region.
He spoke at length about how inscriptions explained the evolution of language from Prakrit language to Telugu in Telangana, and how the Telugu in Telangana inscriptions was slightly different than those found in Rayalaseema and Andhra regions.
Professor MA Srinivasan, general secretary of the Public Research Institute for History, Archaeology and Heritage (PRIHAH), spoke about the need for the students to become heritage activists and preserve our heritage.
“Day in and day night those prying on communalism talk about preserving our great Indian heritage. But there is hardly any effort happening on the ground. We can look at the way excavations are happening in Takshashila region of Pakistan where glorious history is being unearthed,” he pointed out.
