In a remarkable story, an alert bystander managed to save a 400-year-old stone inscription, and a hero stone from being bulldozed in northern Bengaluru. The stone inscription was buried under a heap of gravel on the roadside near Maramma Temple in Hebbal.
25-year-old Dilip Kshatriya alerted the city municipal body, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) which was bulldozing rocks in the area for a road-widening project, reports The Times of India.
Dilip, an employee of a piston manufacturing firm, had noticed the stone inscription last week. "As a Hebbal resident for more than a decade, I have been seeing these stones. Though I didn't know the historical importance of these installations, I knew people used to worship them during Sankranti festivities. I immediately alerted the NGO named Revival Heritage Hub (RHH)," Dilip was quoted as saying by ToI.
Following this, the founder of the NGO Rajeeva Nrupathunga sent two members of Revival Heritage Hub to the spot. The two members were Devaraj S, a college student, and Harihara Sudan O, a school teacher. Here's what Devaraj said while talking to the daily.
We studied the inscription and found that it belonged to 1689 AD. Experts told us that further analysis could throw more light on the construction of Hebbal Lake. In the meantime, our video elicited a good response on social media and many heritage enthusiasts demanded action to save the inscription and hero stone.
Soon after the inspection, the NGO workers notified BBMP who later sent officials from the Archaeology Department to the spot. "We then approached the state archaeology department and told them the stones could be relocated to a government library premises or temple nearby as they'd be prone to damage on the roadside," Devaraj added.
In a similar incident, a bus driver helped discover several stone inscriptions from the 16th century in Yelahanka. "During an excavation, we found Veera Ballala inscription which we have asked the archaeological experts to collect and keep it in the government museum," Dhanpal told International Business Times, India.
