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Colin Mackenzie

Colin Mackenzie (died 1821) was a Scottish engineer officer of the East India Company who surveyed the Deccan and Mysore and became Surveyor-General of India. With Telugu assistants led by Kavali Venkata Borayya, he collected about seven thousand copies of inscriptions and a great store of local histories, many of them from the Telugu country. Later historians of Telugu literature honoured his collection.

Colin Mackenzie was a British army engineer and surveyor who became the greatest collector of South Indian historical records of his time.12 Part of his work was done in the Telugu country, and his best-known helper was a Telugu Brahmin.13 In 1928 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao named his collection, with C. P. Brown’s, among those that “deserve grateful recognition”.4

Early years

H. H. Wilson’s catalogue of his collection, reprinted in 1882 with a memoir, says he was a native of the island of Lewis in Scotland.5 Before coming to India he helped the fifth Lord Napier of Merchiston collect what was known of Hindu mathematics.5 He then obtained a post as a cadet of engineers in the Madras army of the East India Company.5

At Madurai he met Brahmin scholars, and came to believe that the materials for a history of India could be collected all over the peninsula.2 According to the memoir, this plan became “the favorite object of his pursuit for 38 years”.2

In the Telugu country

For his first thirteen years in India he was busy with military and engineering work.2 He served as an engineer in the provinces of Madras, Nellore and Guntur.23 In the war of 1790–1792 he served in Mysore and in the countries ceded by the Nizam.3

C. P. Brown wrote a short memoir of him in 1863. In it he says that Mackenzie met a young Telugu Brahmin, Kavali Venkata Borayya, who became “his industrious assistant in enquiries regarding antiquities”.1 In 1796 Mackenzie laid before the government the first general map of the Nizam’s dominions in the Deccan, which until then were “unknown to the English”.1

Surveyor and collector

After the fall of Tipu Sultan in 1799, he was appointed to survey Mysore.1 The Survey of India later credited him with starting detailed surveys based on triangulation. His Mysore survey was the first in India to use the plane-table.6

All the while he gathered records of history. Brown writes that his messengers copied inscriptions on rocks and copper plates in the villages from Thanjavur to Nagpur, about seven thousand in all.1 Brown also credits him with being the first to find out the facts about the Jain religion.1 In 1811 he went with the army to Java, and collected manuscripts there too.3

Surveyor-General and death

He became Surveyor-General of India and moved to Calcutta, taking his collections and his chief Indian assistants with him.3 He died at Calcutta on 8 May 1821, aged 68.6 The government bought his collection, and H. H. Wilson published a catalogue of it at Calcutta in 1828.1

After his death

His work did not stop at once. Kavali Venkata Lakshmayya, Borayya’s brother, offered to carry on “his master’s unfinished researches”.7 The papers in the South Indian languages were later kept in the library of the College at Madras. William Taylor’s Catalogue Raisonnée of them began to appear in 1857.17

Where the sources disagree

When he came to India. The memoir in Wilson’s catalogue says he came to India in 1782.5 Brown says he landed in 1783.1

When he became Surveyor-General of India. Brown says he was appointed in 1815.1 The memoir in Wilson’s catalogue says “in 1817 or 1818”.3 A Survey of India record of 1916 lists him as Surveyor-General at Madras from 1809 to 1816, and at Calcutta from 1816 to 1821.6

Footnotes

  1. C. P. Brown, Carnatic Chronology (1863), p. 88, “Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Mackenzie” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. Wilson, Mackenzie Collection, 2nd ed. (1882), memoir, p. viii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Wilson, Mackenzie Collection, 2nd ed. (1882), memoir, p. ix (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 110 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. H. H. Wilson, The Mackenzie Collection: A Descriptive Catalogue, 2nd ed. (Madras, 1882), memoir of Col. Mackenzie, p. vii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. Records of the Survey of India, Vol. IX (1916), PDF p. 8 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. William Taylor, A Catalogue Raisonnée of Oriental Manuscripts, Vol. I (1857), p. xvi (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

References

Sources (5)
  1. Charles Philip Brown, Carnatic Chronology: The Hindu and Mahomedan Methods of Reckoning Time Explained (opens in a new tab), Bernard Quaritch, London, 1863, pp. 88. [Public domain]
  2. William Taylor, A Catalogue Raisonnée of Oriental Manuscripts in the Library of the (late) College, Fort Saint George, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), H. Smith, Madras, 1857, xvi. [Public domain]
  3. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press (Y.M.C.A.), Calcutta / Oxford University Press, London, 1928, pp. 110. [Public domain]
  4. H. H. Wilson, The Mackenzie Collection: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts ... of the South of India, 2nd ed. (complete in one volume), with a memoir of Col. Mackenzie (opens in a new tab), 1882, vii–ix. [Public domain]
  5. Survey of India, Records of the Survey of India, Vol. IX (Annual Reports of Parties and Offices, 1914-15) (opens in a new tab), 1916, PDF p. 8. [Public domain]

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