512 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Aug. 



Report of the Committee of Papers on Cavelly Venkata Lachmi'a's pro- 

 posed renewal of Col. Mackenzie's investigations. 



The reference from the Madras Government, for an opinion on the merits of 

 Venkata Lachmi'a pandit's proposition, however complimentary to our Society, 

 might perhaps have been addressed with better effect to the Madras Literary 

 Society, which must be far better acquainted than we can pretend to be, both 

 with the character and attainments of the individual, and with those desiderata 

 in the History of the Peninsula, which he undertakes to elucidate. 



We, however, enjoy one advantage in the possession of Mr. now Professor, 

 Wilson's Descriptive Catalogue of Col. Mackenzie's Collection, which, aided 

 by other published works on the history of the Southern Hindu States, may 

 enable us to form a tolerable opinion on the question. 



It might be supposed from the entire silence of Venkata on the subject of 

 Mr. Wilson's labours in the statement he has handed up to the Madras Govern- 

 ment of the " Progress of the Researches" in which he is engaged, that he was 

 a total stranger to the descriptive catalogue ; although the brief notice he gives 

 of each state and dynasty, appears based upon the summary contained in the 

 introduction to that work, both as to arrangement and detail; and certainly it 

 adds not one iota to the information made public by Professor Wilson in 1828. 



The object of Sir Alexander Johnston, in persuading the Pandit to found 

 a native literary society at Madras was, doubtless, that through the gratuitous 

 aid of those best acquainted with the languages and traditions of the country, 

 and having connections or friends dispersed over the Peninsula, the learned 

 world might be put in possession of translations and digests of the mass of 

 MSS. collected by Col. Mackenzie ; at the same time that other materials of 

 a similar nature might be sought out and accumulated*. The Vice-President 

 of the Royal Asiatic Society does not seem to have contemplated the organiza- 

 tion of an extensive paid establishment of collectors, pandits and copyists ; 

 otherwise it'is probable he would have addressed himself to the Government 

 itself, either directly or through the natural channel of the Madras Auxiliary 

 Society. For he would have anticipated that such an extensive scheme would 

 need the control of a master head, accustomed to generalization, and capable of 

 estimating the value and drift of inscription and legendary evidence. The 

 qualifications of Cavelly Venkata for such an office, judging of them by his 

 " abstract," or indeed of any native, could hardly be pronounced equal to such a 

 task, however useful they may prove as auxiliaries in such a train of research. 

 The pandit's original and arithmetical mode of weighing authorities, of which 

 examples may be found in every item of his statement, is any thing but calcu- 

 lated to contradict this assumption. His remarks on the first, or ancient 

 Nandavamtm dynasty of Andhra, may be cited as an instance : 



" As this is a very obscure dynasty, confidence can only be placed in the 

 inscriptions. From the materials already possessed in the collection of Col. 

 Mackenzie, I suppose one-eighth of the history of this dynasty is complete, 

 and the remainder should be completed by further research." 



The Mackenzie Manuscripts (embracing, as Cavelly Venkata says in his 

 letter to Government, using the words of the late Colonel himselff, no less than 

 twenty-one different alphabets and fourteen different languages) have been for 

 some time at Madias deposited in the College Library. We have no means of 

 knowing whether during that period the pandit (himself a servant of the college) 

 has published or undertaken the translation or analysis of any part of its con- 

 tents. In the absence of any such testimony of his competence, contrasted with 

 what will be presently urged, it seems impossible to recommend any large 

 outlay of public money in the way he proposes. 



Not that it is undesirable to complete the examination of the Mackenzie 

 papers. On the contrary, all who have read Mr. Wilson's catalogue, will grant 

 that to be an object of high, of national importance ; especially when it is 

 asserted that many of the volumes are going rapidly to decayX, and may not be 



* See Mad. Lit. Soc. Journal, No. 12, p. 173. 

 f See Preface to Wilson's Des. Cat. 

 cr. Man. 



