South India’s Old Money
Mark Twain’s ironic quote, “the lack of money is the root of all evil” aptly describes the predicament South India descended into at the turn of the eighteenth century. Drawing upon Buchanan’s Journey and other sources, we trace the fate of the coinage of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore. Read the article published in the Times of […]
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Woods Were Lovely Dark and Deep – Iruliga Memories
During his Journey, not far from Bangalore, Francis Buchanan comes across a forest dwelling community called ‘Cad Chensu’ who also went by the name of ‘Cad Eralliga’ (Iruliga in contemporary records). He writes, “In this hilly tract, there is a race of men called by the other natives Cad Eriligaru; but who call themselves Cad […]
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In Search of Mundane History
From landscapes to a thousand year-old lake, from dilapidated structures to medieval history, Buchanan’s Journey has opened our eyes to prosaic remains of the past. And there is so much to discover, even on the rather unadventurous Bangalore-Mysore road; farming instruments and practices, cattle breeds and plant species, the making of steel wire, limestone and […]
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Amalgam of geology and history
After reading our recent article on the Journey in which we mentioned Gattipura, an iron smelting site on Buchanan’s route near Magadi, we received a message from Chandrasekhar Math, a geologist, asking whether we would like to visit a similar place, Halaguru … It was an offer we couldn’t refuse … Read the full […]
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Tales of the Rupee
Francis Buchanan describes the problem he faced from the multiplicity of coins that he found in Srirangapatna – this was a spark that triggered me to study the history of the rupee. Ultimately, after several years of research Sashi Sivramkrishna published his book, “In Search of Stability: Economics of Money, History of the Rupee” (Manohar […]
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