Mysore: A Gazetteer
Overview
Published in 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company, Westminster, Mysore: A Gazetteer Compiled for Government represents a comprehensive administrative and historical survey of the princely state of Mysore under British suzerainty. This revised edition, expanding upon Rice’s initial 1876 publication, comprises two volumes totaling 892 pages: Volume I treating “Mysore in general” and Volume II addressing “Mysore by districts.” The work emerged during a transitional period in Mysore’s political history, appearing sixteen years after the 1881 restoration of the Wodeyar dynasty to administrative control following fifty years of direct British Commission rule (1831-1881). At the time of publication, the state was governed under the regency of Maharani Kemparajammanniyavaru on behalf of the minor Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, who had ascended the throne in 1895 at age eleven.
Rice compiled this gazetteer in his official capacity as Director of Archaeological Researches and former Director of Public Instruction for Mysore, positions that afforded him unprecedented access to state records, revenue documents, and archaeological sites. The work synthesizes administrative reports, census data from his tenure as Chief Census Officer (1881-1883), and findings from his systematic epigraphic surveys across the region. Unlike purely descriptive travel literature, this gazetteer functioned as an operational reference for British officials and Mysore administrators, providing statistical data on revenue, population, agricultural production, and infrastructure alongside historical narratives.
The 1897 edition reflects the administrative structure of Mysore as it existed in the late nineteenth century, when the state comprised eight districts: Bangalore, Chitraldroog, Hassan, Kadur, Kolar, Mysore, Shimoga, and Tumkur, further subdivided into 120 taluks with 85 taluk courts. Rice’s integration of epigraphic evidence from his ongoing Epigraphia Carnatica project distinguishes this gazetteer from contemporaneous colonial compilations, as he drew upon translations of thousands of Kannada, Sanskrit, and Tamil inscriptions to reconstruct dynastic chronologies and temple histories that official British records could not provide.
About the Author — B. Lewis Rice
Benjamin Lewis Rice (17 July 1837 – 10 July 1927) served the Mysore state administration for forty-five years in capacities that uniquely positioned him to compile this gazetteer. Born in Bangalore to Rev. Benjamin Holt Rice, a missionary connected to the London Missionary Society and Kannada scholar, Rice was educated in England before returning to India to assume the principalship of Bangalore High School (later Central College). In 1868, he joined the Mysore Civil Service as Inspector of Schools for Mysore and Coorg, advancing to Director of Public Instruction upon his father-in-law John Garrett’s retirement. His administrative roles expanded to include Chief Census Officer for Mysore State (1881-1883) and Secretary of the Education Department (1883).
Rice’s most enduring contribution lies in epigraphy and archaeology. Appointed as the first Director of the Mysore State Archaeology Department in 1884, a position he held until his retirement in 1906, Rice conducted systematic tours throughout the region, documenting inscriptions on temple walls, rock surfaces, and copper plates. His monumental Epigraphia Carnatica (1886-1905), published in twelve volumes, contains translations and transliterations of approximately 9,000 inscriptions in Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Persian. This work established methodological standards for Indian epigraphy and earned him the honorific Shasanapitamaha (Grandsire of Epigraphy). His archaeological expeditions yielded significant discoveries including Roman coins, Ashokan edicts, and evidence of dynasties from the third century BCE onward.
Before his retirement, Rice published the six-volume Bibliotheca Carnatica, a collection of major Kannada literary texts that demonstrated his commitment to preserving regional literary heritage. He was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) for his services. Rice died in Harrow, London, in 1927, having spent his final two decades in England while his publications continued to serve as foundational references for South Indian history and archaeology.
The Work
Scope and Methodology:
The gazetteer’s first volume establishes the geographical, historical, and administrative framework of Mysore state, synthesizing data from multiple sources including revenue settlement reports, census returns, meteorological records, and geological surveys. Rice incorporates physical geography (topography, river systems, climate), natural resources (forests, minerals), and infrastructure (roads, railways, irrigation works) with statistical precision drawn from departmental reports. The historical sections trace dynastic succession from ancient periods through the Wodeyar consolidation (sixteenth century), the usurpation by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan (1761-1799), British intervention culminating in the 1799 siege of Seringapatam, and the complex administrative arrangements that followed Tipu’s defeat.
Rice’s historical methodology borrows heavily from earlier chronicles for pre-1760 events, acknowledging these limitations in his treatment of early dynasties including the Gangas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, and Vijayanagara rulers whose governance extended over territories later consolidated into Mysore state. For the Wodeyar period and subsequent decades, he relies on state archives, British Resident records, and his own epigraphic discoveries. His documentation of Hyder Ali’s military campaigns, Tipu Sultan’s administrative innovations and eventual defeat, and the restoration of the Wodeyars provides detailed coverage of the tumultuous late eighteenth century. The 1831 assumption of direct British control and the subsequent Commission administration receive extensive treatment, as Rice had access to official correspondence and administrative reports from this fifty-year period.
Volume II adopts a district-by-district structure, providing for each administrative division: geographical boundaries, taluk subdivisions, population statistics disaggregated by caste and religious community, principal towns and villages with historical notes, agricultural statistics (crops, irrigation, land tenure), revenue assessments, communications infrastructure, educational institutions, and notable temples or historical sites. Rice’s epigraphic expertise allows him to furnish detailed accounts of temple foundations, endowments recorded in stone inscriptions, and architectural features of religious structures. He documents hundreds of villages, providing etymologies of place names often derived from inscriptional evidence and local traditions.
Major Sections:
The gazetteer addresses physical geography through chapters on geology, river systems including the Kaveri and its tributaries, climate patterns and rainfall distribution, and forest resources. Historical chapters trace political evolution from ancient dynasties through contemporary administration, with particular attention to the Wodeyar dynasty’s establishment, the military state constructed by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, British military campaigns, and post-1799 administrative arrangements. Demographic sections draw upon Rice’s census work to enumerate population by caste groups, religious communities (Hindu, Muslim, Christian), and tribal populations, providing ethnographic descriptions of major communities.
Economic coverage includes extensive data on agriculture (dominant crops of rice, ragi, sugarcane), land tenure systems, irrigation infrastructure (tanks, channels), and revenue settlements. Industrial activities receive attention proportionate to their limited development in the 1890s, with notes on silk production, sandalwood processing, and cottage industries. Rice documents the educational landscape he had helped develop as Director of Public Instruction, cataloging government schools, mission institutions, and traditional Sanskrit and Kannada learning centers. Transportation infrastructure—roads constructed under Commission administration, the railway lines penetrating the state, and traditional trade routes—receives systematic coverage.
The district volumes contain extended entries on major urban centers including Bangalore, which was emerging as a significant administrative and military cantonment; Mysore city, seat of the Maharaja and site of the historic palace (redesigned by Henry Irwin in 1897 after plague devastation); and temple towns such as Srirangapatna, Melukote, and Sravana Belgola, the last receiving detailed treatment given Rice’s intensive epigraphic work on Jain inscriptions there. For each significant temple, Rice provides architectural descriptions, foundation dates derived from inscriptions, details of endowments and ritual practices, and historical associations.
Significance
Contemporary Reception:
Within colonial administrative circles, Rice’s gazetteer immediately became the standard reference for Mysore, utilized by British Residents, district officers, and Mysore state officials for administrative planning, revenue assessment, and policy formulation. Its comprehensive statistical data—population figures, agricultural production, revenue yields—served practical governance functions. The historical sections provided British officials with contextual knowledge of the territories they administered, while the district-level detail facilitated local administration. Educational administrators drew upon Rice’s surveys of schools and educational infrastructure. The work’s official imprimatur as a government compilation ensured its authoritative status within bureaucratic hierarchies.
Later Assessment:
For twentieth-century historians, Mysore: A Gazetteer constitutes an invaluable baseline for understanding the princely state in the final decades before significant modernization accelerated under Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV and his diwan Sir M. Visvesvaraya. The demographic and economic data it preserves allows comparative analysis with post-independence conditions. Rice’s documentation of temples, inscriptions, and historical sites provides scholars with late nineteenth-century conditions before subsequent restoration, renovation, or deterioration. His epigraphic citations, while now superseded by more recent paleographic work, directed generations of scholars to inscription sites requiring further study.
Regional historians value the gazetteer’s preservation of local traditions, village histories, and place-name etymologies that might otherwise have been lost. Rice’s documentation of caste and community structures, agricultural practices, and land tenure systems offers ethnographic data from a period of relative stability before twentieth-century social and economic transformations. The work’s limitations—its colonial perspective, reliance on earlier sources for pre-modern history, and occasional ethnographic generalizations reflecting Victorian attitudes—require critical engagement but do not diminish its documentary value.
Value for Researchers:
Contemporary scholars of South Indian history consult Rice’s gazetteer for its comprehensive coverage of late nineteenth-century Mysore across multiple domains. Researchers of temple architecture and Jain studies utilize his descriptions and epigraphic citations, often as starting points for fieldwork verification. Administrative historians examining princely state governance, revenue systems, and colonial-indigenous bureaucratic relationships find extensive primary data. Economic historians draw upon agricultural statistics, land tenure descriptions, and industrial surveys. Demographic researchers use census-derived population data, though critically aware of enumeration limitations.
Epigraphists continue to reference Rice’s inscription transcriptions and translations, though more recent paleographic scholarship has refined dating and interpretation. His geographical descriptions serve historical geography, allowing reconstruction of nineteenth-century landscapes, water bodies, and settlement patterns. Scholars of colonial knowledge production analyze the gazetteer as an artifact of British administrative epistemology, examining how such compilations shaped colonial governance and indigenous self-understanding. The text remains foundational despite its age, as subsequent gazetteers built upon rather than replaced Rice’s comprehensive documentation.
Digital Access
The complete text of both volumes of Mysore: A Gazetteer (1897 edition) is available through the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/mysoregazetteerc01rice, providing free access in multiple digital formats. Additional copies are accessible through digital library collections worldwide, ensuring preservation and scholarly accessibility of this foundational reference work on Mysore state.
Note: This description was generated with assistance from Claude (Anthropic), an AI assistant, and reviewed for accuracy against primary and secondary sources on B. Lewis Rice and the Mysore Gazetteer.