A century of Karnataka’s history lives here.
The Mythic Society, Bengaluru — since 1909. Its library, journal, inscriptions and lectures, now open to everyone, everywhere.
Six doors into the past
The Library
Rare works, searchable nine ways — or request a book
The Inscriptions
Bengaluru’s stones, scanned — scholars sign in for the corpus
The Journal
The QJMS complete — Volume 1 to Volume 117
The Lectures
Six years of recorded talks
The Photographs
The Society’s life, plus 118 press clippings
The Coins
The numismatics collection, catalogued
The stones are disappearing. The scans are forever.
Of Bengaluru’s documented inscriptions — some cut as early as 750 CE — more than a hundred are already lost to the growing city. The Society’s 3D conservation project preserves what remains, so a stone that vanishes tomorrow can still be read and taught from, a century from now.
Lectures & events at Nrupathunga Road
Endowment Lecture: The Early Kadambas — new epigraphic evidence
Free and open to all. Registration opens a week before.
Reading Bengaluru’s Inscriptions — a beginner’s series
With the Society’s epigraphy team.
Sage Agastya in Southern Tradition — Part 4
Now in the lecture archive, with 324 more.
Tagore came in 1919. Gandhi in 1927. Raman presided.
From Reverend Tabard’s book collection to Daly Memorial Hall, patronised by the Maharajas of Mysore, Travancore and Baroda — the Society’s own story is one of its best. Read it, and the people who made it.
Fresh scholarship, a century deep
Pre-Colonial Justice Delivery Institutions of Manipur
Peer-reviewed research in the current issue.
T.M. Keshava: Unearthing Eternity
Reminiscences of a pioneering archaeologist, across five decades of fieldwork.
Your research, in the QJMS
Author guidelines and submissions — archaeology, history, epigraphy, numismatics, folklore.
From the Society’s press
A Century of the Mythic Society, 1909–2008
Hardcopy ₹50 — with 29 more titles from ₹18.
Beyond Stones and More Stones — Vol. 1 & 2
Alongside Archaeology in Mysore and Ajanta to Angkor Wat.
Bengaluru Itihasa Vaibhava · 43 Undocumented Inscriptions
Six free books — download and share.
Six years of talks, one archive
The Early Kadambas — a dynasty rediscovered
Lecture series · 2025
Sage Agastya in Southern Tradition
Four-part series · 2026
The Bhakti Movement across the Deccan
Lecture · 2024
Explore by interest
Epigraphy · Bengaluru · coins · temples · folklore →
On the live site each card carries its lecture’s own video thumbnail.
Daly Memorial Hall, Nrupathunga Road
Hours
Tue–Sat · 10:00–5:15
Sun · 10:00–4:00
Monday closed
Find us
14/3 Nrupathunga Road,
Bengaluru 560 001
080 – 2211 4272
The building
Purpose-built in 1917 — host to a century of scholars. Its story →
31 July — from 117 years of the Society's own record
Rabindranath Tagore lectured here on Folk Religions in India
Two years after Daly Memorial Hall opened on Nrupathunga Road.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke at the Society on the curse of untouchability
One visit in a century of scholars, statesmen and a Nobel laureate president.
A new issue of the Quarterly Journal
117 volumes, published without interruption through a century of change.
Can you read old Kannada? The stones need you.
More than a hundred of Bengaluru's inscriptions are already lost. The Society has scanned what survives — now they must be read. A pilot is open: two published stones, your reading credited by name, every reading confirmed by a Society epigraphist before it is published.
Read a stone →Where to start, if you are new here
The 3D inscriptions project
Why the Society is racing the city to scan its stones.
117 years of the Quarterly Journal
Peer-reviewed scholarship on Karnataka, unbroken since 1909.
Six free books to download
Including 43 Undocumented Bengaluru Inscriptions, in Kannada and English.
Keep the next century of scholarship alive
The Society’s library, journal and research have run on member support since 1909 — its patrons once included the Maharajas of Mysore, and C.V. Raman served as honorary president. Join us.
Become a member