are variations in spelling) who Mackenzie first met in 1796, shortly after his return from Ceylon. He found Boria capable of dealing with all sects and considered him as "the first step of my introduction into the portal of Indian knowledge." Boria knew Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Sankskrit. In 1797, Mackenzie visited Mudgeri and found the ruins of a Jain temple. He wrote an extensive note on the Jains based on interviews through his translator "Cavelly Boria". Boria died in 1803 and Mackenzie took in his brother Venkata Lechmiah (IAST lakṣmaiyyā, also spelt Lakshmaiah or Lakshmayya). Another of Mackenzie's assistant was Dhurmiah (IAST dharmayāḥ), a Jain pandit (scholar) from Maleyur, then in Mysore State. Dhurmiah, with his ability to read Hale Kannada (old Kannada) inscriptions contributed greatly to the study of the inscriptions in the region. Dhurmiah provided Mackenzie with Jain insights into the history of India but some ideas were considered too unreliable such as the idea that the Jains had fled from Mecca. Dhurmiah's son may also have been on Mackenzie's staff. Another orientalist, Mark Wilks interviewed Dhurmiah and wrote on the Jains in his 1817 Historical Sketches of the South of India. Stating the aims of his survey, he wrote from the perspective of a historian in a letter to Major Merwick Shawe in 1805: Amaravati Among Mackenzie's vast collection of illustrations is a set of 85 sketches made at Amaravati. He appears to have first visited the site in 1798 and conducted more systematic studies between 1816 and 1820 after he became a Surveyor General and three copies of these documents were made. One was deposited at the Library of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, another at Madras and one in the British Library at London. Only the London copy survives. Sketches of the site were made by John Newman, draftsman for Mackenzie from 1810 to 1818. About 132 stones were found by Mackenzie but these are no longer traceable. Mackenzie believed that the site was related to the Jain religion and had no idea of Buddhism in India. The stones from Amaravati were brought to Masulipatam but many were not taken to ship but deposited into a mound that came to be known as "Robertson's Mound" after Francis W. Robertson who was Assistant Collector at Masulipatnam from 1814 to 1817. Most of these were subsequently moved to the Madras Museum along with Sir Walter Elliot's collections