The relentless march of urbanisation in Bengaluru, over the last century, has cannibalised many markers of its history. Proof of this is what has been thrown up by an ongoing digitisation project to map ancient inscriptions in Old Bengaluru region. Of the 175 inscriptions recorded in the city by the Epigraphia Carnatica in 1905, only 110 could be identified in locations mentioned in the publication. In the rural parts of Bengaluru district, of about 225 recorded inscriptions, about 60 have fallen victim to the development that the city has seen in the last two decades.
Apathy and ignorance, combined with rapid urban expansion, have contributed to the loss that has come to light during the ongoing 3D digitisation project of inscriptions taken up by The Mythic Society. The project was launched in January 2021 to digitise the inscriptions in Bengaluru, Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara districts covering an area of around 8,000 square kilometres where about 1,500 inscriptions have been recorded in Epigraphia Carnatica Volume 9, Mysore Archaeological Reports (MAR) and other journals.
