Blackpally, the name formerly given to the area that is now
Shivajinagar, remains puzzling for researchers looking to unravel its
origins. The most well-known stand on the matter comes from the
historical records of St Mary’s Basilica, which refer to a village named
“Bili akki palli” that had become a settlement for a group of
Christians moving in from the panchayat town of Gingee in Villupuram
(formerly, South Arcot district) in Tamil Nadu, in the late seventeenth
century. As documents at the church have it, the settlers found the land
to be fertile for a variety of white rice that was also grown in parts
of Ulsoor, and different from other local kinds, such as the red “dodda
bair nellu” variety found in the Kolar region. This lent the village its
name, say the church’s records; “bili akki” literally translates to
“white rice” in Kannada.
That these rice fields were home to flocks of wading birds, egrets and herons, lends the related theory of the area being named after the Kannada word “bellakki”, which is commonly used to describe cattle egret. SK Aruni, Director of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Southern Region, in an attempt to unravel the mystery of Blackpally (in his report entitled “Tracing the architect of the Cantonment”) supposes that the area might have been named after John Blakiston (1785-1867), a British military engineer and lieutenant of the Madras Engineers, who is known as the one assigned to drawing up plans for the Bangalore Cantonment area.
Old-timers in the area insist that the name Blackpally was nothing but a denotation of the dark-skinned natives that the British colonisers had come upon. Records at the Basilica also speak of a “black plague” that struck the area in the late nineteenth century, during when the church offered recourse to locals. Soon after the plague, the figure of Mother Mary was attributed with the name “Annai Arokiamarie” (literally, “Our Lady of Good Health”), say these records. The chapel had been founded by the French priest Abbe du Bois under a thatched roof in 1803, and referred to at the time as the Kaanike Mathe Devalaya (“Church of Our Lady of the Presentation”). Abbe du Bois arrived in Bangalore in 1799 – after the fall of Tipu Sultan’s Srirangapattana to the British – to preserve the Catholic practice in...
Further reading http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/bangalore-beat/features/many-origins-blackpally
Follow us on Facebook for regular updates https://www.facebook.com/pages/THALASSA-SUITES
That these rice fields were home to flocks of wading birds, egrets and herons, lends the related theory of the area being named after the Kannada word “bellakki”, which is commonly used to describe cattle egret. SK Aruni, Director of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Southern Region, in an attempt to unravel the mystery of Blackpally (in his report entitled “Tracing the architect of the Cantonment”) supposes that the area might have been named after John Blakiston (1785-1867), a British military engineer and lieutenant of the Madras Engineers, who is known as the one assigned to drawing up plans for the Bangalore Cantonment area.
Old-timers in the area insist that the name Blackpally was nothing but a denotation of the dark-skinned natives that the British colonisers had come upon. Records at the Basilica also speak of a “black plague” that struck the area in the late nineteenth century, during when the church offered recourse to locals. Soon after the plague, the figure of Mother Mary was attributed with the name “Annai Arokiamarie” (literally, “Our Lady of Good Health”), say these records. The chapel had been founded by the French priest Abbe du Bois under a thatched roof in 1803, and referred to at the time as the Kaanike Mathe Devalaya (“Church of Our Lady of the Presentation”). Abbe du Bois arrived in Bangalore in 1799 – after the fall of Tipu Sultan’s Srirangapattana to the British – to preserve the Catholic practice in...
Further reading http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/bangalore-beat/features/many-origins-blackpally
Follow us on Facebook for regular updates https://www.facebook.com/pages/THALASSA-SUITES
No comments:
Post a Comment