outcome of such efforts on Guntur Taluk. We wish to publish taluk-wise information which would be handy, and cost-wise, within the reach of the users among public men, academicians and research scholars. The information gleaned from 'Guntur Kaifiyats' encompass the present Guntur District which was earlier known as Velanadu in the east, bounded by Pallinadu in the West, and 'Kammanadu' in the South. The subject of the Kaifiyat covers the period of Kakatiyas, and the Reddies of Kondaveedu during periods till the Guntur Circar ceded to the British Raj. The Kaifiyats represent a singular mosaic" of fact and fiction, puranic and legend, eulogising and abusing, ethical and philosophical and material and the temporal. Starting with a puranic account of a village contained in the so called stalapuranas and superstitions, myths, Kaifiyats set-foot on the ground and describe the land, the rates, extents, family history, grants made to pandits and purohits, veterans and vaidyas, trade names and measurement like 'Katta', 'kunta., 'martoor', etc. There is an interesting reference to ´Arava Karnams" (Tamil, Karanams), who used to write the accounts of Kondaveeti-Haveli till Nyogi Karanams supplanted them. Interesting and unusual taxes like the 'Vruthi-Pannu' (tax on birth), 'Poyyala-Pannu' (tax on ovens) and 'Sisuvula-Pannu' (tax on babies) give curious insight into the approach of the kings and chieftains to problems of State economy and State craft. The commentary, here and there, is designed to 'lift-up' the contents of the book, but the reader has been left much of the joy of the such discovery by himself from inscriptions. While throwing the kaifiyats open to the discerning scholars and readers, I am reminded of Right Honourable Shri Srinivasa Sastry's exposition of Ramayana and what it means to different people. I would say the same thing about kaifiyats; in Sri Sasry's inimitable style of English as follows: "There is an illimitable ocean spread out before us as witness to the majesty and incomprehensibility of the Nature. On the shore of the beach you may have a poet thinking in rhapsodies of what he sees and the splendours that meet his vision. A philosopher will amuse and reconstruct the very great thought that put these things together in space. You may have a pious man who simply takes his mind to the consciousness and
