The experiences and knowledge from our past are recorded in manuscripts which have been handed down to us over several thousand years. The Government of India, through the Department of Culture, took note of the importance of the vast tangible heritage of India and established the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) with the purpose of locating. documenting, preserving and disseminating the knowledge content of India's manuscripts. In order to disseminate the knowledge content of manuscripts, the Mission has taken up several programmes such as lectures, seminars and workshops. The Mission publishes the proceedings of the above said programmes under the following series: Samrakshika (lectures on conservation). Kritibodha (project of Advance Level Manuscriptology Workshop). Tattvabodha (lectures of eminent scholars on a particular subject). Samikshika (research-oriented papers as presented in the seminars) and Prakashika (unpublished manuscripts either in facsimile form or critically edited with annotation and translation).
Further more, the Mission is also engaged in publishing catalogues of manuscripts available with various Institutions and Repositories which follow a common theme. CATALOGUE OF MACKENZIE KAIFIYATS, (Mackenzie Kaifiyattula Súci), is one such important publication of the NMM. These Kaifiyats are the records of the villages of the Southern part of India. It has been methodically prepared by Prof. Nadupalli Srirama Raju. Prof Raju has also transliterated the titles of the Kaifiyats in roman script.
Prof. N. S. Raju (1948) was born in a Gandhian principled family of parents late Smt. Adilakshmi and Satyanarayana Murthy. He did M.A (Osmania), Ph.D. (Andhra) and diploma in Linguistics. He joined University of Hyderabad as faculty member in Telugu in 1985-86 and served up to 2013.Later he was appointed as Emeritus Professor and completed a research project on Mackenzie Kaifiyats. His research mainly pertains to classical Literature, Prosody, Grammar and Language. Under his supervision 15 scholars obtained Ph.D and 37 M.Phil. degrees. He published 21 research books, a dictionary, and 58 research papers. His commentary on the 2 canto of Vishnu maya vilasam (20" c) and Appakaveeyam (17°c), a grammar work and dictionary gained appreciation from scholars. His works, sukti uychitri (1984). Akshara visvanatha (1987) and sivakavula rachanalu (1989) achieved state level awards in research competitions. He edited the letters and few articles of Telugu legendary late Gidugu Ramamurthy. He served as a member on the editorial boards of A.P. Govt. text books and also on the Executive Committee of P.S. Telugu University (2005-2009). Apart from his teaching and research, he involved in social activity relating to language. He started, with others, Telugu language awareness movement in 1995 which is now spread in almost all areas of Telugu people.
Scholars and historians and other researchers who are interested in promoting studies in history and Culture of the Telugus are aware of Colonel Mackenzie's Kaifiyats and their significance. The roots of history of the Telugu speaking people at the village level are preserved in the Kaifiyats, Surveys were conducted at the village level to record economic, social, religious and cultural settings thus facilitating the construct of villages as existed at that period of time. The collected materials called Kaifiyats were preserved in the major libraries.
This monumental work was conducted under the aegis of Mackenzie with the able assistance of the learned scholars called 'Kavali Brothers. Their services in the arduous task is commendable. After the untimely death of Kavali Borraiah his brothers Ramaswamy and Lakshmaiah continued and successfully completed the task. In fact the diaries that these scholars maintained during their work are valuable and are available in the Mackenzie collection. If they are deciphered and published they will throw much more light of the times they labored hard.
The Department of Archaeology of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh had published Kaifiyats of some districts under the able guidance of late Dr. V. V. Krishna Sastry with the assistance of Mr. John Akkidas. Apart from this the Kaifiyats of Cuddapah district were published by late Sri Janamaddi Hanumath Sastry and later by Sri Katta Narasimhulu. They constitute 7 volumes running into 2800 pages of valuable material in print. The eighth volume is perhaps published by now.
The present catalogue, I am sure, will be a valuable resource of reference to the future researchers.
Mackenzie Kaifiyats are the manuscripts which were collected and recorded by Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1754-1821 AD), the first Surveyor General of India. The term 'Kaifiyat, which is an Arabic word means narrative, circumstances, explanation, situation in English and katha, avastha, vyaakhya, paristhiti in Hindi. The collection developed with the help of local people and officials appointed by him for the purpose during the period of 1780 to 1820 AD. These manuscripts are mainly in different South Indian scripts and in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi & Sanskrit languages. Amongst these, Telugu manuscripts are more in number, and that too mostly are Kaifiyats containing records of villages. It is possible to understand life style, dialectical, socio-economic and sectorial specialities of the people of those particular regions wherever details are provided in these manuscripts. These Kaifiyats are stored in various libraries and hence researchers face problem to locate any particular manuscript which they are looking for.
Prof N.S. Raju has worked hard for quite some time in order to prepare a Catalogue of Mackenzie Kaifiyats (Telugu) which is being published now by the National Mission for Manuscripts. The Catalogue containing 2028 entries bears the information of the titles of the Kaifiyats, their accession numbers in different repositories and their publication particulars if they are already published. Needless to say, it is a gigantic work and Prof Raju painstakingly worked to locate them and put together all the data of Mackenzie Kaifiyats in this catalogue. This catalogue can be considered as a reference monograph. The names of villages mentioned in the Kaifiyats have been entered in this Catalogue, so the researchers can easily find out the concerned manuscripts.
The Mission proudly presents this publication to the interested people and to the researchers who will take their research ahead taking lead from the Kaifiyats.
This Catalogue consists of collections of Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1754-1821) first Surveyor General of India, exclusively Kaifiyats (records of village information). Telugu manuscripts, with their library accession numbers. The total entries are 2028. Colin Mackenzie is a distinguished member of the brilliant galaxy of Indologists. He joined The Madras Engineering Service in 1783 under East India Company and toured several places in South India. While in his tour he found some sculptures, Inscriptions, palm leaf manuscripts and paper manuscripts and developed curiosity about the scripts and the history of the society depicted. He then started to collect the stone and wooden sculptures, inscriptions, manuscripts, coins etc., valuable historical material. In his collections manuscripts occupy a prominent place. These are mainly related to Kaifiyats, local histories, history of different dynasties, scriptures of Astronomy, Astrology, Medicine etc, dairies, religious scriptures, dramas, stories, poetry, and other creative writings. These documents were written in South Indian languages mainly in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Telugu manuscripts are comparatively more in number than the manuscripts of other languages. Most of these documents are preserved in the Government Library at Madras and some of them are preserved in India Office in London. These manuscripts attracted the view of English scholars who are interested in Indological studies. H.H. Wilson, very first time, prepared a detailed catalogue in 1828 to the manuscripts preserved in Madras Government Library. Rev. William Taylor prepared another catalogue in 1862 in three volumes. Among the Telugu manuscripts most of them are Kaifiyats. In course of time some of them reached to a ruinous stage. C. P. Brown (1798-1884) took care to prepare replicas of the damaged manuscripts and took special interest in preserving them in 419 volumes. The Archives department of Andhra Pradesh Government roughly in 1970s preserved the Telugu manuscripts in the form of microfilm. In 1978 Andhra Pradesh Shitya Academy arranged to prepare fair copies in 54 volumes, to the manuscripts preserved by CP Brown. Now these volumes are available in the library of Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Hyderabad. (Nireekshana Babu...2010:48) Copies of these manuscripts are available in the Sreesailam branch of Telugu University also. Copies of some Kaifiyats are available in the library of Telugu University, Rajamahendravaram. In C P Brown Library of Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa also copies of Mackenzie manuscripts are preserved in 43 volumes. In other universities also probably the copies of the manuscripts of Mackenzie may be available.
In 1932 Madras University started the publication of summaries of the manuscripts of all languages collected by Mackenzie under the editorship of Professor K A Neelakantha Sastry, Dept. of archaeology. This programme was continued in 1947 under the editorship of Professor V R Ramachandra Deekshitar, and also in 1953 under the editorship of Professor TV Mahalingam. Great scholars like Sri K Siva Rama Krishna Sastry, Manavalli Ramakrishna Kavi, K Srinivasachari. G Harihara Sastry, M Venkateswarlu, C Muni Krishna Rao, Nidadavolu Venkatarao extended their valuable services in preparing the summaries of the documents. Summaries of Tamil and Malayalam manuscripts in one volume, and Telugu. Kannada and Marathi in another volume were published in 1972 under the editorship of Professor T V Mahalingam (foreword. Vol. 1) The Archaeological Department of Madras Government, published the summaries of some Telugu manuscripts (Kaifiyats) in two volumes (Vol. Nos. 17,18) under the editorship of Dr. T. Sridhara Murty, The Archives Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh published the Kaifiyats of 9 districts. The Kaifiyats of Kadapa district were published in eight volumes by Yogi Vemana University (Appendix-1). With these publications, the Kaifiyats collected by Mackenzie became very popular. Kaifiyats of East Godavari, Chittoor and Anantapur Districts, and some of Hyderabad area, Andhra, Odisa etc., border areas and some more are yet to be published. In this present treatise an attempt is made to provide the information about the availability of manuscripts of the Kaifiyats in different libraries, along with publication details.
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