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current and past. It also contained 8,076 inscriptions, 2,630 drawings, 6,218 coins, and several other antiquities. Most of these were sent to England. Mackenzie's collection was dominated by the series called Kaifiyats and inscriptions, the former being prepared mostly by the local Karanams at his instance and collected by his specially appointed surveyors whose names unfortunately are not available. The number of such records is said to be in several thousands. Most of them were compiled in the second decade of the nineteenth century. They were first lodged in the college library, Madras, in 1830, where they were entrusted to the Madras Literary Society and then handed over in 1836 to Rev. William Taylor to be edited for publication. But only a fraction of the entire collection, he could publish in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, the bulk of the collection being subjected to the decay of ink and paper. After this stage, about forty years later they were transferred to the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. This collection is what is now called Mackenzie Manuscripts. Some time later C. P. Brown who had done yeoman service to Telugu literature got some of the manuscripts recopied and bound in volumes which are now known as Local Records or Kaifiyats. These are the traditional accounts restored to writing by the Karanams to the extent they could gather.
It is to be admitted that exaggerated notions regarding the value of the Mackenzie manuscripts as containing authentic historical material are not justified. Several scholars in oriental research often admire Mackenzie as a pioneer in the field of South Indian historical research; still the authenticity of the information contained in these Kaifiyats has been equally doubted, however, not without reason. For these records are generally based on second hand traditions and unverified narrations. In spite of this fundamental defect, they have their own place in the field of historical research. Their testimony may be taken as circumstantial evidence calculated to supplement the results arrived at from other sources. The important part of the collection relating to inscriptions has been published in three volumes by the Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras. But they are also based on the eye copies of inscriptions prepared by the surveyors of Col. Mackenzie and hence need verification from texts published by the Epigraphy Department. It is again our experience that considerable number of original inscriptional stones copied by those surveyors are not available at present owing to the frequent renovation works conducted by the temple authorities and the tank repairers, etc, Thus for those inscriptions which could not be copied by the Epigraphy Department we have necessarily to depend on the texts furnished in these Kaifiyats. And these eye copies of the lost inscriptions are of immense value to an experienced epigraphist who can cautiously make out some useful material from them. Apart from this the Kaifiyats furnish invaluable information regarding the administrative, social, religious and linguistic aspects of the village life of the
