Early 19th Century — The Purnaiyya Era
The administration of Dewan Purnaiyya marks an important stage in the history of Mysore’s inam lands. For the lands associated with the Dargah of Baba Budan (Syed Budan Shah Khadri), the significance of this era is preserved chiefly through later accounts and settlement proceedings—not through an independently verified original Purnaiyya order in this collection.
The administrative setting
Historical accounts of Mysore’s inam administration describe an early survey commonly called the Akshaya Paimayish, undertaken under Dewan Purnaiyya. The associated inam accounts became an important point of reference in later inquiries into land grants and revenue obligations. An inam might involve remission or assignment of land revenue, rather than unrestricted ownership of every parcel concerned.
Earlier grants
Later settlement material associated with the Baba Budan institution records an account attributing earlier inams to the chiefs of Anegondi. That attribution is a statement preserved in a later record; it does not, by itself, establish the date or terms of an original medieval grant.
Reorganisation
The later settlement narrative refers to Purnaiyya resuming earlier inams and substituting lands associated with Suraguppa and Dasarahalli as Sarwamanyam. The precise terms and authority of this reported transaction require examination of the original underlying orders.
Why the account matters
The distinction between an original grant, a later administrative recognition, and a nineteenth-century account of still earlier events is central to the archive. It helps readers understand why the history of an institution’s lands cannot be reduced to a single date or document. It also explains why the records of the later Mysore Inam Settlement are indispensable when tracing the development of these claims.
What we have: later settlement-era descriptions of earlier inams and their reported reorganisation. What remains unverified: the original Anegondi grant and an original Purnaiyya order specifically effecting the substitution of Suraguppa and Dasarahalli. No facsimile of either is represented on this page.
Documentary trail
The archive’s chronology continues with the early nineteenth-century Persian record associated with Suraguppa, followed by the coffee-related records of the 1820s and the later settlement materials. Each document should be read in its own historical context and alongside the evidence that survives.
Primary archive research: Mysore Inam Settlement material (1873), especially the reported account of earlier inams and Purnaiyya’s reorganisation, as identified in the Baba Budan Archives research index. Comparative administrative context: historical descriptions of the Akshaya Paimayish and Mysore’s inam accounts in the Mysore Muzrai Manual tradition. The original 1873 page images and precise quotations should be linked here after final verification.
Further reading: Extract attributed to the Mysore Muzrai Manual. This is a secondary online reproduction and should not be confused with the original manual.