Seshachandrika: A Compendium of Dr. M. Seshadri's Works (Only One Copy in Stock) An Old and Rare Book

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The Directorate of Archaeology & Museums, Government of Karnataka has great pleasure in bringing out this Volume SESHACHANDRIKA a compendium of all the available monographs, reports and articles of late Dr. M.Seshadri, former Director of Archaeology and Museums. Dr. Seshadri was a pre-historian of international repute. He specialized in pre-history after a decade of teaching History in the Maharaja's College, Mysore. With Dr. M.H. Krishna he participated in several excavations conducted by him like those at Brahmagiri and Chandravalli. Later he went to London and under the guidance of that great pre-historian Dr.Zeuner, he worked on "Stone-using Cultures of Pre-and-proto- historic Mysore", which earned him a Doctoral Degree of the University of London. He also specialized in Muselogy and visited Egypt and other places.

The Department of Archaeology and Müseums thought of bringing out a Compendium of his booklets and papers. The idea was further mooted by Dr. A.Sundara, former Director of Archaeology and presently Director of the Karnataka University Post-graduate centre, Bijapur. Just last month it was decided to publish things volume on the eve of a seminar on Robert Bruce Foote to be held Bijapur. Hence we did not have time enough to secure all the writings of late Dr. Seshadri. We are sure that this will be of great use to scholars and students of Archaeology, History and Art and Architecture. There are 13 articles in Kannada included in a section at the end.

We thank Smt. Padma Seshadri for having permitted us to bring out all these in one volume. We are also thankful to all those individuals and institutions who have published these articles etc., in various Journals and in book-form and who have permitted us to reprint them.

We are thankful to Prof. B.K.Gururaja Rao, a former student and colleague of late Dr. Seshadri for writing a Foreword to this book. Immense thanks are also due to Sri.Kamalesh, Artist, for designing the cover page.

Pre-history is a subject which has not been properly studied in Karnataka; it has remained, more or less, a terra incognita till recently. This is more so in Southern Karnataka (formerly the princely state of Mysore). It was Robert Bruce Foote who in the latter half of the 19th century who pioneered these studies as part of his investigations of the prehistoric and proto-historic cultures of the peninsular India. Stray studies were made by geologists of the princely state of Mysore now and then but they were few and far between. It was Dr. M.H.Krishna, Professor of History in Mysore University and the Director of Archaeology of Mysore State who undertook a series of excavations in the region pertaining to the proto-historic and early Historical cultures of the region.

But no systematic and comprehensive studies were undertaken into the whole range of pre-historic cultures by any one. It was left to Prof. M.Seshadri to undertake this arduous task. Prof. Mayasandra Seshadri started his career as a school teacher and later on joined Mysore University as Lecturer in History. He had the fortune of working under stalwarts like M.H.Krishna, Prof. S.Srikantasastry, Prof. Venkatasubba Sastry and others. But he developed a love of Archaeology. Making use of the opportunities that came his way he underwent field training in Archaeology under Dr. R.E.M. Wheeler in the excavations at Brahmagiri and Chandravalli and at Harappa. Having developed his love for Archaeology, he decided to specialise in this field, but the constraint was finance. He managed to secure a meagre loan from the Government of Mysore for further studies, sold his property at his native place and thus mobilising his resources he left for London to pursue his ambition. He got himself admitted to the London Institute of Archaeology and took up his doctoral research under one of a greatest prehistorian of the day, Dr. Zeuner. He also worked in close association with the greatest archaeologist of those days, Prof. V.Gordon Childe.