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Sakti and Barakat: The Power of Tipu's Tiger

An Examination of the Tiger Emblem of Tipu Sultan of Mysore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Kate Brittlebank
Kate Brittlebank
Affiliation:
Monash University
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Extract

A figure who walks larger than life through the pages of eighteenthcentury south-Indian history is Tipu Sultan Fath Ali Khan, who held power in Mysore from 1782 until his death at the hands of the British in 1799. In general, scholars of his reign have taken a mainly Eurocentric approach, essentially concentrating on his external relationships and activities, particularly with regard to the French and the British, while more recently there has been some examination of his economy and administration. Recent research into both kingship and religion in south India raises issues which suggest that it is time this ruler was reassessed in his own terms, from the point of view of the cultural environment in which he was operating.3 Little attempt so far has been made to do this.4 One matter which merits closer attention is his use of symbols, particularly in connection with the symbolic expression of kingship. Given Tipu's somewhat ambiguous status as a parvenu, whose legitimacy as ruler was questionable, this would appear to be a fruitful area for research.5 His most famous symbol was the tiger, yet while it has captured the imagination of scholars in other disciplines,6 it has not exercised the minds of historians to any extent.7 It is the aim of this paper to restore the balance by looking at this symbol in the light of the work of Susan Bayly, who has underlined the strongly syncretic nature of religion in south India. Drawing upon both written and oral material, Bayly has described the interaction which has taken place between Muslim, Hindu and Christian traditions, the result of which is a borrowing of symbols and ideas, a frequently shared vocabulary, and an interweaving of motifs within a common sacred landscape, at the centre of which is the imagery associated with the ammans or goddesses of the region.8 It is my contention that an examination of Tipu's tiger symbol will reveal that it is firmly rooted in this syncretic religious environment and that this should emphasize to us the importance of placing the Mysore ruler within his cultural context in order to understand his actions, particularly from the point of view of kingship.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 257 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 See, for example, Hasan, Mohibbul, History of Tipu Sultan, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1971);Google ScholarAli, B. Sheik, A Study of Diplomacy and Confrontation (Mysore, 1982).Google Scholar

2 For example, Guha, Nikhiles, Pre-British State System in South India: Mysore 1761–1799 (Calcutta, 1985);Google ScholarSen, Asok, ‘A Pre-British Economic Formation in India of the Late Eighteenth Century: Tipu Sultan's Mysore’, De, Barun (ed.), Perspectives in Social Sciences I (Calcutta, 1977), pp. 46–119;Google ScholarStein, Burton, ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered: Part One’, Modern Asian Studies 19, 3 (1985), pp. 387–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See, for example, Appadurai, Arjun, Worship and Conflict Under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge, 1981);CrossRefGoogle ScholarBayly, Susan, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700–1900 (Cambridge, 1989);Google ScholarDirks, Nicholas B., The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge, 1987).Google ScholarAlso influential has been Stein's, BurtonPeasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980).Google Scholar

4 While Hasan addresses the question of religion, for example, he does so only in a minor way. Stein's article is really the only work which attempts to place Tipu within his cultural context.

5 Tipu's status in relation to the Wodeyar Kartars, or Rajas, of Mysore is a complex matter and one which will be addressed elsewhere.

6 See, for example, Archer, Mildred, Tippoo's Tiger (London, 1959);Google ScholarBuddie, Anne et al. , Tigers round the Throne: The Court of Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) (London, 1990).Google Scholar

7 Hasan, for example, pays it no attention.

8 Bayly, Susan, Saints; also ‘Hindu Kingship and the Origin of Community: Religion. State and Society in Kerala, 1750–1850’, Modern Asian Studies 18, 2 (1984), pp. 177–213;CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Islam in Southern India: “Purist” or “Syncretic”?’, Bayly, C. A. and Kolff, D. H. A. (eds), Two Colonial Empires: Comparative Essays on the History of India and Indonesia in the Nineteenth Century (Dordrecht, 1986), pp. 35–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Kirkpatrick, William, Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries (London, 1811), Letter CCCLIII. The term is used by Tipu.Google Scholar

10 This type of ‘obsession’ is not without precedent, however. Shah, Ibrahim Adil II of Bijapur displayed a similar attachment to the word nauras.Google ScholarGhauri, Iftikhar Ahmad, ‘Kingship in the Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda’, Islamic Culture 46 (1972), pp. 43, 46.Google Scholar It should be noted that the tiger was not the only emblem used by Tipu. A sun motif, a not uncommon Indian royal symbol, and the initial letter of the name of his father, Haidar Ali, are also frequently found.

11 A large number of illustrations of the different uses made of the tiger motif can be found in Buddie, Tigers. See also Forrest, Denys, Tiger of Mysore: The Life and Death of Tipu Sultan (London, 1970)Google Scholar and Henderson, J. R., The Coins of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (Madras, 1921). Henderson fails to identify the babri stripe, which he merely refers to as an ‘obliquely twisted pointed oval’, but it is clear from illustrations that this is in fact what it is, p. 31.Google Scholar

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17 Buddle, Tigers, p. 18; Kirkpatrick, Letters, p. 138, n. 1.Google Scholar

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19 Fisher, Michael H., A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, The British, and the Mughals (Riverdale, 1987), p. 158.Google ScholarSee also Inden, Ronald, ‘Ritual, Authority, and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship’, Richards, J. F. (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia, 2nd edn (Madison, 1981), pp. 45, 53.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that in Tibet tiger skins were symbolic of ‘… wealth, power, authority, status and guardianship.’ Shaffer, Daniel, ‘In the Forests of the Night’, Hali 41 (08–10 1988), pp. 44–5.Google Scholar

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22 Arts Council of Great Britain, The Arts of Islam (London, 1976), p. 82.Google ScholarColour photographs can be found in King, Donald, ‘Treasures of the Topkapi Saray’, Hali 34 (04–06 1987), pp. 28, 31. I am grateful to Susan Scollay for discussing with me the Ottomans’ use of the stripe.Google Scholar

23 Viewed by the author.

24 Victoria and Albert Museum, Heritage, pp. 98–9.Google ScholarA Mughal girdle with this design is illustrated in Ashton, Leigh, The Art of India and Pakistan (London, 1950), Pl. 76.Google Scholar

25 Victoria and Albert Museum, Heritage, pp. 25, 92.Google Scholar Curiously enough, an identical stripe to Tipu's can be found on a Syrian 8th-century stone carving of a tiger. Illustrated in Humbert, Claude, Islamic Ornamental Design (London, 1980), Pl. 995.Google Scholar

26 Steingass, F., A Comprehensive Persian—English Dictionary (New Delhi, 1981).Google Scholar

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29 Mahalingam, , Polity, pp. 87–90.Google ScholarRao, C. Hayavadana, History of Mysore (1399–1799 A. D.), 3 vols (Bangalore, 1943–46), I, pp. 66, 95, 507.Google Scholar

30 Mahalingam, , Polity, pp. 90–2. The Hoysalas had a close affiliation with Jainism.Google Scholar

31 Rao, , History, I, p. 389.Google Scholar

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33 Kirkpatrick, Letters, CCCLIII.Google Scholar

34 Dirks, Hollow Crown, p. 47.Google ScholarOn incorporation see also Cohn, Bernard S., ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’, An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi, 1987), pp. 635–7, 641:Google ScholarPearson, M. N. (ed.), Legitimacy and Symbols: The South Asian Writings of F. W. Buckler (Ann Arbor, 1985), pp. 177–8.Google Scholar

35 MMDLT, Haidar, p. 23. Haidar seems to have particularly favoured the use of yellow, a colour ‘… much affected by the emperor and the Subas’. Ibid., p. 180.

36 Archer, , Tiger, p. 4. Rao, History, III, p. 914. Rao, however, later contradicts himself. III, p. 1030.Google Scholar

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38 This is well demonstrated in Rao, History, III, p. 525, n. 39, where an Indian writer states that ‘… Haidar means tiger and that it was the title of Hazrat Ali …'. In addition, in Tipu's Marine Regulations the word used for tiger to describe a decoration on the model of a warship is sher and not babr. Sher is frequently translated ‘lion’. Kirkpatrick, Letters, Appendix K, p, lxxix, n.6.Google Scholar

39 It does seem, though, that a visual distinction is made. Tipu's choice is very clearly the tiger; nowhere is t h e lion found visually represented.

40 Dirks, , Hollow Crown, pp 43 ff; Bayly, Saints, p. 159.Google Scholar

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47 Kirkpatrick, Letters, CCXXXIII. The implementation of this plan was to be carried out on the way by the embassy despatched in 1786 to the Ottoman Sultan at Constantinople. With his customary attention to detail, Tipu writes to the Darogha of the Tosha-Khana at Seringapatam that the chest containing the funds for this project should be labelled: ‘In this chest are deposited the rupees composing the Nuzr to be appropriated to the construction of an aqueduct [from the Euphrates] to the sepulchre of holy.’ Ibid., CCCC. The project never came to fruition.

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50 Sinha, Narendra Krishna, Haidar Ali, 4th edn (Calcutta, 1969), pp. 110, n. 3, 184;Google ScholarKirmani, Mir Hussein Ali Khan, The History of the Reign of Tipu Sultan Being a Continuation of the Neshani Hyduri, tr. Miles, W., rpt 1844 edn (New Delhi, 1980), p. 178.Google Scholar On the day he was killed, Tipu had been advised by his astrologers that the day was inauspicious. To counteract this he gave gifts to Brahmans and alms to the poor, as well as carrying out certain rituals.

51 Qasim, , Account.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 Buchanan, , Journey, I, p. 235.Google Scholar

54 Qasim, , Account.Google Scholar

55 Bayly, , Saints, p. 99.Google Scholar

56 Husain, Mahmud, (tr.), The Dreams of Tipu Sultan: Translated from the Original Persian with Introduction and Notes (Karachi, nd).Google Scholar

57 Qasim, , Account.Google Scholar

58 Beatson, , View, Appendix XXXIII, p. ciii. These magic lines would no doubt have been given to Tipu by a Sufi pirzada. Eaton tells the story of Sultan Ali II of Bijapur receiving a piece of paper with a prayer written on it to be attached overthe muzzle of the city's cannon before firing it at the Marathas.Google ScholarEaton, Richard M., Sufis of Bijapur 1300–1700: Social Role of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton, 1978), p. 242.Google Scholar

59 Schimmel, Annemarie, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York and London, 1984), pp. 84, 86.Google Scholar Schimmel writes: ‘Even seemingly meaningless, unconnected letters can convey some blessing, provided they have been written with the proper intention by a skilled amulet maker; and inscriptions on metalwork, which often consist of mere fragments of blessing formulas, may still bear the baraka of the full prayer.’

60 Ibid., p. 10.

61 One only has to read Buchanan to realize that tigers were a constant threat in the lives of villagers and travellers in the area. Journey, I, p. 49 and passim I, II, III.Google Scholar

62 Mahalingam, , Polity, p. 87; Rao, History, III, p. 1030. Emphasis added.Google Scholar

63 Buchanan, , Journey, II, pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

64 Bayly, , Saints, p. 2. See also pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 147.

66 Ibid., pp. 27–31, 134.

67 Ibid., p. 28. For a discussion of Durga-Kali as the martial deity or warrior oddess see Beane, Wendell Charles, Myth, Cult and Symbols in Sakta Hinduism: A Study of the Indian Mother Goddess (Leiden, 1977), pp. 177–80.Google Scholar

68 The assumption here of cultural continuity between the area examined by Bayly and that of Mysore is based primarily upon Stein's discussion of an identifiable macro-region within southern India, which, with some regional variation, has displayed over the centuries a cultural homogeneity. Peasants, pp. 30–62; see also pp. 100–1, 366–416. In addition, Tipu's patronage of a Sufi shrine at Penukonda (see below), in the area examined by Bayly, reinforces this assumption.Google Scholar

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72 Whitehead, H., The Village Gods of South India, 2nd edn (Calcutta, 1921), pp. 29, 80–1.Google ScholarThe seven sisters are probably the ‘Seven Mothers’ or saptamatrikas referred to by Stein, Burton in Peasant, p. 238.Google Scholar

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74 Ibid., p. 302; Buchanan, , Journey, II, p. 182.Google Scholar

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76 Bayly, , Saints, p. 66;Google ScholarMahalingam, , Polity, p. 28.Google Scholar See also Dirks, , Hollow Crown, p. 167;Google ScholarStein, , Peasants, pp. 384–92.Google Scholar

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79 Ibid., p. 190. Tipu's close association with Sufi pirs and their descendants is unquestioned. Kirkpatrick writes that the Mysore ruler was frequently in contact with the ‘priests’ of shrines throughout the south, who, it seems, held him in very high regard. Letters, pp. 306, 459. Also see, for example, Letters CCCLXIX, CCCLXXXV.Google Scholar

80 Srinivas, , Remembered, p. 299.Google ScholarIt has been suggested that the tiger was the primitive vehicle of Siva, prior to Nandi the bull. Bhattacharyya, ‘Tiger-Cult’, p. 44.Google Scholar

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84 Ibid., p. 180.

85 Zimmer, Heinrich, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Princeton, 1946),CrossRefGoogle Scholar cited ibid., p. 53. Alternatively, the tiger has been described as ‘the vehicle of Sakti’. As the master of this power, Siva ‘… carries the skin of the tiger as a trophy.’ Danielou, Alain, Hindu Polytheism (New York, 1964), p. 216.Google Scholar

86 Bayly, , Saints, pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

87 That Tipu, following his ‘martyrdom’ has been given the title of ‘Hazrat’ and is now himself revered as a shahid, complete with an ‘urs festival on the anniversary of his death, suggests that he achieved his aim. I am grateful to Dr Sanjay Subrahmanyam for this information.