Crowdfunded memorial for Bengaluru’s oldest citizen is ready

BENGALURU: A crowdfunding effort by 250 individuals and five corporates has resulted in building an abode for the city’s oldest known inscription dating back to 750CE. The inscription, discovered in Hebbal in June 2018, is a herostone dedicated to a person named Kittayya, who died fighting for his village.
The Ganga-style mantapa for the Kittayya inscription and three other herostones found there have been built at a cost of Rs 25 lakh.

Uday Kumar PL of Inscription Stones said the project is unique when it comes to conserving heritage in a city like Bengaluru.
“Kittayya happens to be the first documented citizen of Bengaluru that we know of and is the oldest surviving Kannada inscriptions in the city. We had earlier built a sort of pedestal for old inscriptions in Jakkur and Allalasandra by spending from our pocket,” he said.
However, there was no awareness about the heritage we had conserved. Therefore, for Kittayya, we opted for crowdfunding,” he added.
Uday said they handed over brass mementos of the inscription to donors.
“30 NRIs contributed to the exercise and got the replicas in several US, European cities and many other parts of the world. We wanted to spread the word that our city has a lot more when it comes to heritage,” he said. Uday also thanked many locals who chipped in to build the mantapa.
Architect and urban historian Yashaswini Sharma, who designed the mantapa, said when she was approached to design one for the 750CE Kittayya inscription, which immortalises his valour, the immediate thought was to secure it in a deserving way. “The inscription is now housed in a mantapa designed in the Ganga style of architecture in deference to the period it belonged to. It was also an opportunity to do an intervention in an urban setting, which reconnected residents with their locality and preserve historical connections that give people their identity.”
We need more such efforts, says ASI official
K Muniratnam Reddy, director (epigraphy), Archaeological Survey of India, praised the work done by Uday and his team. “It is interesting to know that many locals have contributed to the conservation of a rare inscription in Bengaluru. We need more such efforts,” said Reddy who was instrumental in the recent discovery of the earliest known Sanskrit inscription of South India in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.