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Colin Mackenzie

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Colonel
Colin Mackenzie
CB
Painting byThomas Hickey(1816)
1stSurveyor General of India
In office
1815–1821
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byJohn Hodgson
Personal details
Born1754
Stornoway,Scotland,Great Britain
Died8 May 1821(1821-05-08)(aged 63–64)
Calcutta,Bengal Presidency,India
Resting placeSouth Park Street Cemetery,Calcutta
Spouse
Petronella Jacomina Bartels
​
​
(m.1812)​
Military service
AllegianceBritish East India Company
Branch/serviceMadras Army
RankColonel
Battles/wars
Painting byThomas Hickey(1816). Suggested identities of the persons from left to right are Dhurmia, a Jain pandit holding apalm-leaf manuscript,Cavelli Venkata Lechmiah, a Telugu Brahmin pandit, Colin Mackenzie in the red uniform of the East India Company and Kistnaji, a peon holding a telescope.[1]The background was said by early commentators to be the statue ofGomateshwaraatShravanabelagolabut Howes (2010) identifies it asKarkala.[2]The hill to the left of the statue has a basket-and-pole used by theGreat Trigonometrical Survey.[1]

ColonelColin MackenzieCB(1754–8 May 1821) was Scottish army officer in theBritish East India Companywho later became the firstSurveyor General of India.He was a collector ofantiquitiesand anorientalist.Hesurveyedsouthern India, making use of local interpreters and scholars to study religion, oral histories, inscriptions and other evidence, initially out of personal interest, and later as a surveyor. He was ordered to survey theMysore regionshortly after the British victory overTipu Sultanin 1799 and produced the first maps of the region along with illustrations of the landscape and notes on archaeological landmarks. His collections consisting of thousands of manuscripts, inscriptions, translations, coins and paintings, which were acquired after his death by theIndia Office Libraryand are an important source for the study of Indian history. He was awarded aCompanion of the Order of the Bathon 4 June 1815.[3]

Early life

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Crop from Thomas Hickey's painting

Colonel Colin Mackenzie was born inStornowayonLewis,Outer Hebrides,Scotland,the second son of merchant Murdoch Mackenzie (who was the first postmaster of the town) and Barbara around 1753 or 1754. Little is known of his early life but he is thought to have started his work as a Comptroller of the Customs atStornowayfrom 1778 to 1783, possibly through the influence of his father's association with the MackenzieEarls of Seaforth.In his youth he had an interest in mathematics possibly fostered by his schoolmaster, afreemason,Alexander Anderson.[4]Lord Kenneth Mackenzie(last Earl of Seaforth) andFrancis(fifthLord Napier) sought his help in preparing a biography ofJohn Napierand his work on logarithms. When Lord Napier died in 1773, Kenneth Mackenzie helped Colin to obtain commission with theBritish East India Companyto join theMadras Army.When he arrived inMadrason 2 September 1783 he was thirty and was never to return home again.[5]He joined as a Cadet in the Infantry division but was transferred in 1786 as aCadet of Engineers.[6]

India

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Arriving in India he first met the daughter ofLord Francis Napier,Hester (d. 1819). Hester was married to Samuel Johnston who worked as a civil servant at Madurai (their sonAlexander Johnstonlater became a judge in Sri Lanka, founded theRoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Irelandand wrote a memoir on the life of Colin Mackenzie). Hester introduced Mackenzie to someBrahminsto obtain information on Hindu mathematical traditions as part of the biographical memoir onJohn Napierand the history of logarithms. The biography project appears to have been subsequently dropped but Colin continued to take an interest in antiquities.[1][5]

For the first thirteen years in India, he was busy with military duties. He began inCoimbatoreandDindigularound 1783 followed by engineering duties in Madras,NelloreandGunturand during the campaign against Mysore from 1790 to 1792. In 1793 he saw action in theSiege of Pondicherry.He was posted as a commanding engineer toCeylonand returned in 1796.[5]He rose in rank starting from asecond lieutenanton 16 May 1783,first lieutenanton 6 March 1789; andcaptain16 August 1793.Majorby 1 Jan 1806 rising on to become acolonelon 12 August 1819.[7]It was after his return from Ceylon that he was able to follow his interest in antiquities.[8]

Mysore survey

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Watercolour from the Mackenzie collection showingNandidrugin October 1791 with the batteries firing. The positions of the batteries was decided by Mackenzie andLord Cornwalliscommended Mackenzie for his role in the victory overTipu Sultan.

In 1799, Mackenzie was part of the British force in theBattle of Seringapatam,whereTipu Sultan,MaharajaofMysorewas defeated. After the defeat of Tipu, he led theMysore surveybetween 1799 and 1810 and one of the aims was to establish the boundaries of the state as well as the territories ceded by theNizam.The survey consisted of interpreters, a team of draftsmen and illustrators who collected material on the natural history, geography, architecture, history, customs, and folk tales of the region.

Mackenzie's map of southern India (1808)

When he began the survey, he was concerned that he had no linguistic skills and was more appalled by the lack of British competence in south Indian languages. Around the same time, thetrigonometric surveywas proposed byWilliam Lambtonbut there was little collaboration between the two during the Mysore survey.[9]Mackenzie was told that his survey was not to be "mere military or geographical information, but that your enquiries are to be extended to a statistical account of the whole country." However he was not provided enough resources for this grand plan. He wrote toBarry Closethat he would not "descend to the minutiae" of measuring cultivated and uncultivated land but would instead focus on that which was of political and military importance. He pointed out that enquiries into revenues created uneasiness. One of his chief interpreters was a man named Kavelli Venkata Boria (IASTkāvelī veṃkeṭā boraiyāḥ, there are variations in spelling) who Mackenzie first met in 1796, shortly after his return from Ceylon. He found Boria capable of dealing with all sects and considered him as"the first step of my introduction into the portal of Indian knowledge."Boria knewTamil,Telugu,KannadaandSankskrit.In 1797, Mackenzie visitedMudgeriand found the ruins of aJain temple.He wrote an extensive note on the Jains based on interviews through his translator "Cavelly Boria".[10]Boria died in 1803[11]and Mackenzie took in his brother Venkata Lechmiah (IAST lakṣmaiyyā, also spelt Lakshmaiah or Lakshmayya). Another of Mackenzie's assistant was Dhurmiah (IAST dharmayāḥ), a Jain pandit (scholar) from Maleyur, then inMysore State.Dhurmiah, with his ability to readHale Kannada(old Kannada) inscriptions contributed greatly to the study of the inscriptions in the region. Dhurmiah provided Mackenzie with Jain insights into the history of India but some ideas were considered too unreliable such as the idea that the Jains had fled fromMecca.Dhurmiah's son may also have been on Mackenzie's staff. Another orientalist,Mark Wilksinterviewed Dhurmiah and wrote on the Jains in his 1817Historical Sketches of the South of India.[12]

Stating the aims of his survey, he wrote from the perspective of a historian in a letter to Major Merwick Shawe in 1805:[13]

The elucidation of the History of the several Governments that have rapidly succeeded in this Stage will I conceived be very interesting, as by the Inscriptions, Grants & other Documents that came into my hands, a regular Progress is traced up to the first Mahomedan invasion in the 13th Century & even beyond it to the 8th but more obscurely; & in several instances still further, these consist not merely of a dry Chain of uninteresting facts but are connected by various illustrations of the genious & manner of the People, their Several Systems of Government & of Religion, & of the predominant causes that influence their Sentiments & opinions to this day; lights are derived on the Tenures of lands, the origin & variety of the several classes, and the genius and Spirit of the Government prevalent generally in the South for centuries from Several Documents illustrating claims & pretension not foreign to modern discussions;... confirming the utility of this undertaking to the existing Government from a knowledge of Institutions that influence so considerable a part of the Population of the Empire.

Amaravati

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Inscriptions inMudgeriand at Amaravati (1809)

Among Mackenzie's vast collection of illustrations is a set of 85 sketches made atAmaravati.He appears to have first visited the site in 1798 and conducted more systematic studies between 1816 and 1820 after he became aSurveyor Generaland three copies of these documents were made. One was deposited at the Library of theAsiatic Society, Calcutta,another at Madras and one in theBritish Libraryat London. Only the London copy survives. Sketches of the site were made by John Newman, draftsman for Mackenzie from 1810 to 1818. About 132 stones were found by Mackenzie but these are no longer traceable. Mackenzie believed that the site was related to the Jain religion and had no idea of Buddhism in India. The stones from Amaravati were brought toMasulipatambut many were not taken to ship but deposited into a mound that came to be known as "Robertson's Mound" after Francis W. Robertson who was Assistant Collector at Masulipatnam from 1814 to 1817. Most of these were subsequently moved to theMadras Museumalong with SirWalter Elliot's collections from Amaravati. About 79 stones depicted in the Mackenzie drawings are unaccounted for and are not traceable to collections in museums.[14]

Java

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This inscription was found at Ngendat nearMalangand gifted by Raffles to Lord Minto who took it back home and now goes by the name ofMinto Stone.

Mackenzie spent two years (1811-1812/13) inJava,during the period ofBritish occupationduring theNapoleonic Wars.On 18 November 1812, while in Java, he married Petronella Jacomina Bartels at a local Lutheran Church. Petronella was born in Ceylon and was of Dutch ancestry.[4]In 1814,Stamford Raffleshaving heard of Mackenzie's work in India, wanted him to survey Java and report on its monuments. Since Mackenzie had then moved back to India, the team was led by H. C. Cornelius (who had accompanied Mackenzie earlier) who was also responsible for the work involved in removing the debris from the buried ruins ofBorobodur.[15]His report on the survey of Java included many watercolours illustrating life during that period. These were published in three volumes. The first was titledAntiquities & Costume(s) of Java, 1812-13and includes drawings and sketches some of which were made use of by Raffles in hisHistory of Java.The second volume bore the titleA Collection of Monuments, Images, Sculptures &c. illustrative of The Ancient History, Religion & Institutions of the Island of Java and of the Adjacent Isles: Taken under the immediate Inspection & Direction of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mackenzie in the course of a Tour & of different Excursions through the Island of Java in the years 1811-1812 & 1813and included numerous sketches and a few watercolours. The third volumeViews, Plans and Maps on the Island of Javacarried some pencil drawn maps.[16]

Surveyor General of India

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1816 map of Pondicherry signed by Colin Mackenzie (National Archives of India)

In 1757, the East India Company underLord Clivehad appointedJames Rennellas Surveyor General for Bengal. Colin Mackenzie was appointed Surveyor General of Madras Presidency in 1810 but these posts were abolished in 1815.[17] After his returning to India, in June 1815, he was invested as aCompanion of the Bath.He returned to continue surveys of eastern India from the Krishna toCape Comorin.[7]On 26 May 1815 he was appointedSurveyor General of Indiawith his headquarters atFort WilliaminCalcuttabut he was allowed to stay on inMadrasto help reorganize the surveys. He stayed there till May 1817 during which period he worked on planning surveys and examining earlier surveys. He appointed Benjamin Swain Ward (1786-1835) to surveyTravancore,Lieutenant Peter Eyre Conner (born 5 August 1789, died 29-April-1821 at Hyderabad) (Sometimes given only as Lt. Connor[18]) forCoorg(then written as Codugu or Koorg), Francis Mountford (1790-1824) to Guntur and James Garling (1784-1820) to the Nizam's territories. By 1816 Garling had used atriangulationsystem similar to that of Lambton to work out the position of the ruins ofBijapurand was moving northwards. While Garling's work was appreciated by the surveyors ofBombay,he was rebuked by Mackenzie whose orders restricted him to the Nizam's territory.[19]The government in an attempt to hasten his move to Calcutta sent the yacht,HC Phoenixto transport him and his family from Madras on 24 June 1816. The captain,Criddle,was ordered to take him to survey thePulicatand Armegon Shoals before taking him to Calcutta. Mackenzie however set about to his work and did not board the yacht. The government then wrote that he should use the survey shipSophiawhich was to bringSir John Malcolmto Madras in May 1817. He finally set sail to Calcutta on 17 July 1817 aboardSophia.[6]When Mackenzie moved from Madras to Calcutta, Lechmiah was retained.[6]

Death and after

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Cover ofSaturday Magazine28 June 1834 carrying Sir Alexander Johnston's evidence placed before a Committee of the House of Commons

He died on 8 May 1821 at his home inCalcutta,India, and was buried inSouth Park Street Cemetery.His widow, Petronella, offered the collections to the Bengal Government at a tentative price of Rs 20,000. The law firm Palmer and co. did an assessment of the collections and arrived at a figure of Rs 100,000 as a 'reasonable reimbursement' and the Bengal Government acquired the collections. In 1823 Petronella married Lt. Robert Page Fulcher at theCape of Good Hope.[4]Fulcher was a fellow traveller on the ship to England and her original plan was to move to Stornoway to live with Colin's sister. Mackenzie's Will left 5% to Lechmiah.[1]Much of his collection ofdocuments,manuscripts,artifacts,andartworksis now in theBritish Museumand theOriental and India Office Collectionsof theBritish Library,though part of it remains in theGovernment MuseuminMadras.[6]Samuel and Hester Johnston's son, SirAlexander Johnston,wrote amemoiron the life of Colin Mackenzie.[7]

After Mackenzie's death, Lechmiah continued to helpHorace Hayman Wilsonin cataloguing the collections. He applied to the Madras division of the Asiatic Society to continue work on the collections made by his master. This was rejected on the grounds that no oriental could handle the managerial and critical work.James Prinsepdeclared that"..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...".[20]Lechmiah was the only Indian admitted to theMadras Literary Societywhich was founded in 1817 and in 1833, Lechmiah founded a parallelMadras Hindu Literary Societyas a means of continuing his work.[21]Sir Alexander Johnstonsupported this venture which also got the support of Captain Henry Harkness (author of a book on Indian scripts[22]) and George Norton (a radical Advocate-General who was against government support for Christian missionaries[23]support for but this organization did not survive long.[24][25][26]A missionary in Madras, William Taylor was chosen for the job. Taylor has been described as a poor scholar (with a defective knowledge of the Devanagari script[27]) if not a deranged antiquarian by Dirks (1993).[28][29]Lechmiah received a monthly pension of 300 rupees and was given a grant of aShotrium(orShrotrium[30]), land given as a reward for Civil officers. Three other brothers Ramaswamy (Ramasawmy), Narasimhalu (Naraseemoloo) and Sitayya (Seetiah) also worked for Mackenzie but the latter two were mainly as minor assistants. Ramaswamy later published extensively in English. His works included a book on the cities of the Deccan (Descriptive and Historical Sketches of Cities and Places in the Dekkan...), a biography of Deccan poets (1829), a cookbook translated in 1836 from a Telugu book written by Saraswati Bai (Pakasastra, otherwise Called Soopasastra, or the Modern Culinary Receipts of the Hindoos[31]), a book on caste in 1837.[26][32]

Studies of the maps made by Mackenzie's survey are considered to have the potential to highlight interesting archaeological sites as well as provide information on the organization and structure ofpoligarchiefdoms which were dismantled after British takeover.[33]

References

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  1. ^abcdBlake, David M. (1991)."Colin Mackenzie: collector extraordinary"(PDF).British Library Journal:128–150.
  2. ^Howes, Jennifer (2010).Illustrating India: The Early Colonial Investigations of Colin Mackenzie (1784–1821).New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^East-India Register and Directory.W.H. Allen. 1819. p. 71.
  4. ^abcMantena, Rama Sundari (2012).The origins of modern historiography in India. Antiquarianism and Philology, 1780-1880.Palgrave Macmillan.
  5. ^abcWilson, Horace Hayman (1882).The Mackenzie collection A descriptive catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts...(2 ed.). Madras: Higginbotham and Co. pp. vii–xviii.
  6. ^abcdPhillimore, R.H. (1954).Historical Records of the Survey of India 1815 to 1830. Volume 3.pp. 474–483.
  7. ^abcH.M.C. (1893). Lee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 35 MacCarwell - Maltby.Vol. 35. London: Elder Smith & Co. pp. 138–139.
  8. ^Johnston, Alexander (1834)."Biographical Sketch of the Literary Career of the late Colonel Colin Mackenzie, Surveyor-General of India; comprising some particulars of his Collection of Manuscripts, Plans, Coins, Drawings, Sculptures, &c. illustrative of the Antiquities, History, Geography, Laws, Institutions, and Manners, of the Ancient Hindús; contained in a letter addressed by him to the Right Hon. Sir Alexander Johnston, V.P.R.A.S. &c. &c".Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland.1(2): 333–364.doi:10.1017/S0035869X00142510.
  9. ^Roy, Rama Deb (1986)."The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in a historical perspective"(PDF).Indian Journal of History of Science.21(1): 22–32. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 25 January 2014.
  10. ^Mackenzie, C. (1809)."Account of the Jains collected from a priest of this sect at Mudgeri: translated by Cavelly Boria, Brahmen".Asiatic Researches.9:244–278.
  11. ^Puttaswamy, B.S. (2012)."Kavaly Venkata Boraiyya, First Indian Epigraphist".Proceedings of the Indian History Congress.73:919–922.ISSN2249-1937.JSTOR44156289.
  12. ^Orr, Leslie C. (2009). "Orientalists, Missionaries and Jains: The South Indian Story.". In Trautmann, T.R. (ed.).The Madras School of Orientalism: Producing Knowledge in Colonial South India.New Delhi: Oxford University Press. pp. 263–287.
  13. ^Robb, Peter (1998). "Completing" Our Stock of Geography ", or an Object" Still More Sublime ": Colin Mackenzie's Survey of Mysore, 1799-1810".Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.8(2): 181–206.doi:10.1017/S1356186300009974.S2CID128485610.
  14. ^Howes, Jennifer (2002). "Colin Mackenzie and the Stupa at Amaravati".South Asian Studies.18(1): 53–65.doi:10.1080/02666030.2002.9628607.S2CID194108928.
  15. ^Gifford, Julie (2011).Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture: The Visual Rhetoric of Borobodur.Taylor & Francis. p. 4.
  16. ^Bastin, John (1953)."Colonel Colin Mackenzie and Javanese antiquities".Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.109(3): 273–275.doi:10.1163/22134379-90002406.JSTOR27859832.
  17. ^Heaney, G.F. (1968). "Rennell and the Surveyors of India".The Geographical Journal.134(3): 318–325.doi:10.2307/1792959.JSTOR1792959.
  18. ^Connor (1870).Memoir of the Codugu Survey. Commonly Written Koorg. Part 1.Bangalore: Central Jail Press.
  19. ^Phillimore, R.H. (1954).Historical Records of the Survey of India 1815 to 1830. Volume 3.p. 4.
  20. ^Prinsep, James (1836)."Report of the Committee of Papers on Cavelly Ventaka Lachmia's proposed renewal of Col. Mackenzie's investigations".Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal:512–514.
  21. ^Wagoner, Phillip B. (2003). "Precolonial Intellectuals and the Production of Colonial Knowledge".Comparative Studies in Society and History.45(4): 783–814.doi:10.1017/S0010417503000355.S2CID145060460.
  22. ^Harkness, Henry (1837).Ancient and modern Alpha bets of the popular Hindu languages of the southern peninsula of India.Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
  23. ^Blackburn, Stuart H. (2006).Print, folklore and nationalism in colonial south India.Orient Blackswan. pp. 110–112.
  24. ^Norton, George (1841).Rudimentals; being a series of discourses... addressed to the natives of India.Madras: J.B. Pharoah. p. 2.
  25. ^"Importance of British India to the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain".Saturday Magazine.28 June 1834. pp. 242–243.
  26. ^abMantena, Rama sundari (2009). "The Kavali Brothers. Intellectual life in early colonial Madras". In Trautmann, Thomas R. (ed.).The Madras School of Orientalism. Producing knowledge in Colonial South India.Oxford University Press. pp. 126–.
  27. ^Buhler, Georg (1864)."Remarks on the Sanskrit manuscripts in Madras".Madras Journal of Literature and Science:72–85.
  28. ^Dirks, Nicholas B (1993). "Colonial Histories and Native Informants: Biography of an Archive". In Breckenridge, CA; van der Veer, P (eds.).Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia.University of Pennsylvania Press. pp.279–313.
  29. ^Hoock, Holger (2010).Empires of the Imagination: Politics, War and the Arts in the British World, 1750-1850.Profile Books. p. 321.
  30. ^Wilkins, Charles (1813).Glossary to the Fifth report from the select committee appointed to enquire into the present state of the Affairs of the East India Company.p. 43.
  31. ^Boy, Saraswate (1836).Pakasastra otherwise called Soopasastra, or the modern culinary receipts of the Hindoos.Translated by Ramasawmy, C.V. Madras: Church Mission Press.
  32. ^Ramaswamie, Cavelly Venkata (1829).Biographical sketches of Dekkan poets.Calcutta.
  33. ^Lewis, Barry (2001). "The Mysore Kingdom at AD 1800: Archaeological Applications of the Mysore Survey of Colin Mackenzie". In Jarrige, Catherine; Vincent Lefevre (eds.).South asian Archaeology. Volume 2(PDF).Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. pp. 557–565.ISBN978-2-8653830-1-6.

Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toColin Mackenzie (orientalist).
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Government offices
Preceded by
Office established
 Surveyor General of India
1815–1821 		John Hodgson
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