South Indian Inscriptions, Volume XXV: Inscriptions Copied During the Year 1908

Born on 15th July 1941, Dr. Sampath had his graduation and post-graduation from Madras University. He took his Doctorate degree from Karnatak University in 1976. He has taken the Post Graduate Diplomas in Geography, Anthropology and Sanskrit from the University of Madras. He served as an Epigraphist in the Dept. of Archaeology Govt. of Madras, French Institute of Indology, Pondicherry, University of Mysore and in the Archaeological Survey of India. He is the retired Director of Epigraphy, Archaeological Survey of India. He has authored the book on Chittoor Through The Ages and contributed over 100 research papers which cover on diverse field as political history, art and architecture, numismatics, archaeology, onomastics and epigraphy. As one of the editors of Epigraphia Carnatica volumes his contributions to Tamil and Kannada epigraphy is rich. He had delivered Prof. Balakrishna Nayar Endowment lectures in the University of Madras. His contribution to the problem of the origin and orthography of Brahmi scripts has invited many criticisms from researchers. The editing of the texts of inscriptions of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi became the nucleus of another monograph to which the ICHR has awarded fellowship. Dr. M.D. Sampath was honoured with the General Presidentship and with a copper-plate citation in 2005 for the outstanding services rendered to the field of epigraphy. He also presided over the medieval history session of the Andhra History Congress held at anaparti. He has to his credit as the editor of South Indian Inscriptions volumes, Epigraphia Indica volume, Topographical list of South Indian Inscriptions and North Indian Inscriptions, Epigraphia Indica Index, Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy, Journal of Epigraphical Society of India, Journal of Place Names Society of India, Epigraphs of Madhya Pradesh and Journal of Ancient Sciences and Archaeology. With the help of latest techniques, he has created software for various Indian scripts. He has edited a number of felicitation volumes.