page_title: M. H. Krishna
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: M. H. Krishna / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, 1903.
context_page_description: Mysore Hatti Krishna Iyengar was an Indian historian, archaeologist, epigraphist and authority in Indian numismatics. He pioneered the new field of Indology involving the study of Indian culture, history, music and traditions from a historical perspective. He is credited with the discovery of one of the oldest Kannada inscriptions, the Halmidi inscription, dating back to 350 A. D. He also discovered the remains of the city of Isila near Brahmagiri during his excavations at Chandravalli, Chitradurga. The forgotten tomb of Shahaji was traced by M. H. Krishna during his years at the Mysore Archaeological Department. His years at the Archaeology Department saw him churn out many of excavation reports and these were later published in successive volumes of Epigraphia Carnatica. During Krishna's tenure at Bangalore, he was instrumental in cataloguing close to 6000 coins in the archives of the archaeology department there. He was trained at the University College, London under Ernest Arthur Gardner. and would later accompany Sir Flinders Petrie in his excavations in Egypt.
context_section_description: Krishna was born in Mysore to parents Ranga Iyengar and Lakshmamma. Ranga Iyengar was a Sanskrit scholar and a teacher to Nalwadi Krishna Raja Wodeyar during the Maharaja's childhood. He was also Chief Treasurer of the Mysore Palace. They were natives of a region in Karnataka by name Kalale (Kannada: ಕಳಲೆ).
  Krishna had his schooling at Jayacharya Patashala and Wesleyan Mission High School, Mysore. Here, he was a contemporary of Masti Venkatesha Iyengar. He finished his B. A. in 1911 from Maharaja College, Mysore. By 1917, Krishna secured a M. A. qualification from Madras University. For the next two years, he worked as Lecturer in History at the Maharaja College, Mysore. In 1919, Krishna was made a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, London. The then Vice Chancellor of University of Mysore Brajendranath Seal and Head of the Department of History, Maharaja College - Radha Kumud Mukherjee were impressed with M. H. Krishna's aptitude in Numismatics and Epigraphy and deputed him to Bangalore, Archaeology Office for the cataloguing of close to 6000 coins in their archives there (1920 -1922).
  By 1924, Krishna was sponsored for higher studies to University College, London. Here, he was guided in his research by |Ernest Arthur Gardiner. Apart from Gardiner, he was under the tutelage of L. D. Barnett, Sir Flinders Petrie, Eliot Smith, Seligman, W. J. Perry and Edvard Westermarck. Krishna accompanied Flinders Petrie on his Egyptian excavations. He made use of his time in Europe to visit and study collections of South Indian interest at the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Fitzwilliam Collection, Cambridge, the National Museum, Paris and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin. He submitted his theses Deccan Numismatics for publication to the Royal Institute at this time. Krishna was invited to deliver a series of public lectures on Indian History and Archaeology. He delivered about seven lectures in 1926. He was eventually made Fellow of Royal Numismatics Society and Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
caption: Sir Flinders Petrie
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