He is neither a historian nor an archaeologist; neither a analysis scholar in a college nor a littérateur. Yet, he’s making an attempt to perform an uphill activity which individuals from any of those classes would ever attempt.

Meet 42-year-old Manimela Shivashankar, a Class-5 drop out, who ekes out his residing, loading and unloading items for a non-public transport firm in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur city.

However, in his spare time, Shivashankar goes by historical scriptures, historic manuals and literature in libraries or inscriptions on varied temples throughout the district to seek for the villages and hamlets talked about in there.He tries to seek out out the precise location of those locations and why they’ve gone into oblivion of historical past.

So far, Shivashankar has recognized practically 500 such villages and hamlets throughout totally different elements of erstwhile mixed Guntur district (which has now been divided into three separate districts – Guntur, Bapatla and Narasaraopet), which don’t exist at current – as they disappeared from information over centuries.

He has made an attention-grabbing research on these “missing villages” – together with the explanations: the place they have been initially positioned, what their historic significance was and why they’ve disappeared into historical past over a time period.

Despite being a college dropout and missing formal schooling in literature or historical past, Shivashankar took the assistance of his spouse Lakshmi Rajyam, who has studied as much as Class 12 and a few buddies to compile a ebook in Telugu within the identify of “Guntur Zilla Adrushya Gramalu” (The Missing Villages of Guntur) final 12 months, that has attracted the eye of a number of universities in Andhra Pradesh.

“I don’t remember how it struck me that I should do a study on the missing villages. All I can say is that I suddenly developed interest in this after visiting the Kotappakonda temple at Narasaraopet about five years ago, where I noticed an ancient scripture which mentioned some villages which are not in existence now,” Shivashankar stated.

Since then, at any time when he discovered time, Shivashankar began visiting roadside ebook retailers in Guntur and searching for previous history-related books; temples throughout the district and observing inscriptions and libraries to gather attention-grabbing materials associated to historic locations.

Shivashankar additionally went by “Mackenzie Manuscripts,” the information of Colonel Colin Mackenzie, a 18th century Scottish military officer within the British East India Company who later grew to become the primary Surveyor General of India, particularly in South India.

“Mackenzie was involved in collection of oriental literature and ‘Kaifiyats’— historical records about a village or town in the Deccan region by village accountants. He surveyed southern India, making use of local interpreters and scholars to study religion, oral histories, inscriptions and other evidence. His manuscripts gave me a lot of inputs about the villages existing in those days,” Shivashankar stated.

He additionally received acquainted with the information of manuals and gazettes of the British period, moreover historical poetry, income information, previous maps and so forth. to learn about such lacking villages. He additionally made inquiries with old-timers who remembered the villages which have been current prior to now.

Reasons for the disappearance

Shivashankar recognized 28 causes for the disappearance of villages over a interval of centuries. “It could be due to migration of people from their original place due to long-periods of famine in their area and settling at some other places or the villages might have been inundated due to floods to Krishna river,” he stated.

According to him, heavy taxation by the native feudal lords or kings, assaults by wild animals or superstitions additionally may need pressured the individuals to abandon their unique villages. “In the 20th century, some villages got inundated in the backwaters of Krishna river due to construction of irrigation projects like Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala. Under such circumstances, the villages existed only on papers and records, but are not seen at present. Some of the villages might have merged with the adjacent villages and lost their original names,” he defined.

Some of the villages which he recognized as lacking have nice historic significance. “For instance, Pingali, a popular village, after which several people in Telangana and Andhra take their surname, like ancient poet Pingali Surana during Vijayanagara empire, Pingali Venkaiah who designed Indian national flag and popular Telugu lyricist Pingali Nagender Rao, is nowhere to be seen now. My study has revealed that it was a village in Guntur district, which was deserted by the villages due to floods,” Shivashankar stated.

Similarly, Boddupalli village, which was talked about by well-known Telugu poet Srinatha of 14th century in his poems, has disappeared over centuries in the past and isn’t seen in any of the income information. Shivashankar traced the village close to Amaravati on the banks of Krishna river primarily based on a small clue given by the poet – it was on the banks of Godderu, which joins Krishna river close to Amaravati.

Another lacking village Nidigallu, which was talked about in Rentala Brahmi inscription was detected by Shivashankar at Vijayapuri of Nagarjununi Kota of third century AD. Similarly, Daddanalapadu which was recorded as a village the place queens used to commit “Sati” together with their husbands who died in wars, was discovered to be have disappeared.

Many such villages reminiscent of Panuganti, Tammadipalli, Kommamuru, Navanidhanapatnam, Mulukutla, Shanampudi, Eklas Khan Peta, and so forth, which as soon as flourished in Guntur have now gone into historical past.

“It is a great effort by Shivashankar and first-of-its-kind research on the missing villages along with the reasons for the same. In spite of his limitations in education, he has done his best to record the history which everybody has forgotten,” stated Dr Emani Shiva Nagi Reddy, chief govt officer of the Cultural Centre of Vijayawada, who wrote a preface to Shivashankar’s ebook.

Shivashankar says he has an extended option to go in figuring out extra lacking villages. “What I have done so far is just the tip of an iceberg. I don’t have resources or time to do extensive research. It will be good, if somebody can carry forward this attempt,” he added.