Kāvali V. Borayya’s name appears frequently in Mackenzie’s journals and letters. Mackenzie wrote with glowing praise of Borayya’s dedication to the archival project, “the deceased C.V. Boria Bramin, the principal Interpreter, on the Mysore Survey, and previously in the Dekan, to whose ingenious conciliatory talents, much of the successful results from Native intercourse, may be fairly referred[12].” It seems likely that Borayya, and after his death, Kāvali Venkata Lakshmayya, Borayya’s younger brother, may have directed much of the historical researches. Mackenzie writes, “to the zeal and Fidelity of the surviving Brother, C.V. Lechmyah Bramin, I consider myself indebted for following up with effect, the Plan traced and by his Brothers for investigating the Civil and Religious Institutions of these Countries.” The Kāvali brothers were indispensable for Mackenzie in his quest for a diverse set of historical materials. These principal assistants had their own assistants who were sent out to different villages, towns, and cities to gather material. Two important assistants of Lakshmayya (who appear frequently in his journals) were Narrian Row and Nitala Naina. Besides the translators, who became prominent in Mackenzie’s historical researches, he also employed Eurasian draftsmen, copyists, and surveyors trained at the Madras Observatory School run by Michael Toping[13].

Lakshmayya’s trip, which uncovered a wealth of historical material in the seaside temple town of Mahabalipuram, illustrates the productive relationship between Mackenzie and his principle assistants. Mackenzie advised Lakshmayya on his visit to Mahabalipuram in May 1803 to “make yourself however acquainted at first with the most respectable people of the place & of the Pagodas; & the Mootadars managers of the district & endeavor with civility to get their good will & carefully avoid to give offence by any indiscreet interference beyond your own business.” He urged him to “keep a journal during your absence for my information of your journey & your remarks on the country, buildings, temples, sculptures, & every remarkable objects.” Mackenzie instructed his assistants to follow a ‘method’ in conducting their historical researches. After following the social protocols of a given region (‘country’), Lakshmayya is asked to seek ‘written accounts’ if they are preserved and to obtain the ‘originals,’ if possible. Beyond the written accounts, Mackenzie asks him to make copies of inscriptions. In addition to historical records, Mackenzie asks Lakshmayya to inquire with the locals about “any curious or ancient customs, laws or historical facts.”[14]

The Indian assistants of Mackenzie traveled to far corners of south India armed with questions such as “Who was Durma-Vurma[?]” and “What is the meaning of the title Vurma?” or to find out the “List of names of the 20 kings of the south …said to have ruled 1119 years . . . is any history preserved of them & of their transactions?”[15] They translated manuscripts and provided summaries of those that were too long to translate in their entirety. Certainly, Mackenzie knew a great deal in order to formulate an outline for his Indian assistants to fill in the blanks. In 1804, Mackenzie wrote a memorandum on the kinds of information needed from Brahmins in southern Tamil Nadu[16]. The memorandum was intended for his assistants to use in their inquiries into the histories of the region. He asks for a “list of the names of the ancient kings of Cholla or Sora & their dates & reigns” and instructs his assistants to look for “any accounts of their transactions, their capitals & their endowments with dates? Which of them & at what period erected the first works on the Caavery—the great anicut?” The series of questions was supposed to bring “the ancient history of the south down to the 13th century & to the first appearance of the mahomedans.” Mackenzie lays out a clear framework for the assistants. The memorandum frames a history of south India and indicates to what extent Mackenzie was familiar with rulers, places, climates, religious sects, and the history of land tenure in the region. He lists three headings that are also of primary importance for Mackenzie: ‘Ramanoojoo,’ ‘Sankar-Achary,’ and ‘Establishment of the Pandarums.’ Mackenzie states in advance that he was looking for accounts of distinguished figures in religious history and, more importantly, that the most useful accounts would be those that could give weight to information gleaned from other sources. This emphasis on corroboration—of assessing the veracity of native Indian accounts through comparison—was a method favored by Mackenzie (rather than the kind of uncompromising “objective” historical method advocated by James Mill).

The regional textual traditions that colonial antiquarians confronted were rich and complex. When perusing the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, especially the first two decades of its publication, one is inevitably struck by the sheer volume of material that colonial scholar-officials were collecting and with which they were engaging. It is in the pages of these journals and the discussions held at institutions such as the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the College of Fort St. George that we encounter the assessments and judgments of colonial antiquarians and philologists. However, a careful examination of the archival records of the collectors and their assistants, in this case, Mackenzie’s journals, letters, and notes, reveals a more complex picture of the transactional nature of the intellectual encounter than what is apparent in the published material of the time. The published record displays a self-confident Orientalist scholarship that seemed very much a product of individual European efforts. However, we learn from a broader source base that native Indian assistants were quite prominent in the day-to-day work of traveling to villages, introducing themselves to karanams (village accountants) and other important figures, inquiring into manuscripts, inscriptions, and genealogies and finally reporting back to their colonial mentors. Moreover, what we learn from the broader historical record is that native Indian assistants were in constant interaction with and carried on complicated transactions for colonial scholars (philologists and antiquarians). Ultimately, we learn of how native Indian assistants did not simply imbibe new practices of history but also shaped them while immersed in daily collection, collation, assessment, and translation activities.

Mackenzie’s assistants moved between the world of the Europeans in Madras, Black Town, and the many villages and towns scattered throughout the Carnatic, Mysore, and Northern Circar regions. Phillip Wagoner has rightly pointed to the prevalence of Niyogi Brahmins employed by Mackenzie, and his tracing of Narrian Row’s history with the Arcot Court is especially riveting[17]. The connections Wagoner unravels through Narrain Row’s writings help give us a sense of the ease of movement between the Arcot bureaucracy and Mackenzie’s project enabled by the administrative skills associated with the Niyogis.

Another perspective on the ‘secular’ scribal practices that developed in parallel with pundit skills is well worth mentioning. Velcheru Narayana Rao’s work in this arena offers an important contribution to an understanding of the sociology of colonial knowledge production. His analysis of the particular type of scholar the college recruited shows that the pundit was chosen over the karanam. Rao argues that a particular kind of prose was generated by this recruitment, which had a great deal to do with the particular institutional sites of production. Rao writes that karanams “were good scribes in that they could make their copy intelligible and beautiful to the eye, or, if they so chose, impossible to decipher except by the initiated.” Furthermore, he writes: “They prided themselves as being masters of knowledge of land use, dispute settlement, local history and penmanship almost exclusively.”[18] Mackenzie’s assistants were clearly not part of the pundit world and the skills associated with it. Rather, the Kāvali brothers were Niyogi Brahmins who did not hesitate to delve into the gritty, unglamorous world of the karanams. The Kāvali brothers seem to inhabit a world caught between the two, which explains the sorts of troubles both Lakshmayya and Ramaswami faced in relation to the Madras government. The Kāvali brothers were able to traverse the world of the Europeans (and the conversations with them) as well as the world of the karanams in towns and villages scattered throughout the Madras Presidency—worlds that went beyond the pristine ones of the pundits to the cutcherry [kacheri, administrative office], where unequal exchanges, charges of corruption, and levels of misunderstanding seemed to be the standard fare of everyday life.