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A N IMPERIAL C APITAL : VIJAYANAGARA 171 Source 1 Colin Mackenzie Born in 1754, Colin Mackenzie became famous as an engineer, surveyor and cartographer. In 1815 he was appointed the first Surveyor General of India, a post he held till his death in 1821. He embarked on collecting local histories and surveying historic sites in order to better understand India’s past and make governance of the colony easier. He says that “it struggled long under the miseries of bad management … before the South came under the benign influence of the British government”. By studying Vijayanagara, Mackenzie believed that the East India Company could gain “much useful information on many of these institutions, laws and customs whose influence still prevails among the various Tribes of Natives forming the general mass of the population to this day”. Fig. 7.2 Mackenzie and his assistants This is a copy by an 2. Rayas , Nayakas and Sultans unknown artist of an oil According to tradition and epigraphic evidence two painting by the portrait brothers, Harihara and Bukka, founded the painter Thomas Hickey. It dates to c.1825 and belongs Vijayanagara Empire in 1336. This empire included to the collection of the Royal within its fluctuating frontiers peoples who spoke Asiatic Society of Britain and different languages and followed different religious Ireland. On Mackenzie’s left traditions. is his peon Kistnaji holding a telescope, on his right are On their northern frontier, the Vijayanagara kings Brahmana assistants – competed with contemporary rulers – including the a Jaina pandit (right) and Sultans of the Deccan and the Gajapati rulers of behind him the Telugu Orissa – for control of the fertile river valleys and Brahmana Cauvellery the resources generated by lucrative overseas trade. Ventak Letchmiah. At the same time, interaction between these states led to sharing of ideas, especially in the field of architecture. The rulers of Vijayanagara borrowed ➲ How has the artist concepts and building techniques which they then portrayed Mackenzie and his indigenous developed further. informers? What ideas about him and his informants are sought to Karnataka samrajyamu be impressed upon the While historians use the term Vijayanagara Empire, viewers? contemporaries described it as karnataka samrajyamu. Reprint 2026-27