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The official and personal seals of Tipu Sultan of Mysore
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 May 2021
Abstract
This article looks at all the known seals of Tipu Sultan of Mysore (r. 1782-1799) particularly those found in the manuscripts which formed his Library collection, disbanded in 1799 after the fall of Seringapatam and subsequently divided between the East India Company London (now in the British Library), and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkata. By focussing on the British Library collections certain patterns of usage have come to light, possibly indicating Tipu Sultan's linguistic and literary preferences.
It gives me great pleasure to dedicate this article to Barbara Brend as a mark of appreciation for her patience and help, whose knowledge and advice has been of such benefit to a non-art historian. At the end of this article I highlight an important manuscript from the Royal Asiatic Society's collection which thanks to her sponsorship has now been digitised and is available on the web as part of the RAS digital collections.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 32 , Special Issue 4: Studies in Honour of Barbara Brend , October 2022 , pp. 792 - 807
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society
Footnotes
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The original version of this article was published with an error in one Keyword. A notice detailing this has been published and the error rectified in the online and print PDF and HTML copies.
References
1 Kirmani, Husayn ʻAli Khan, The History of the Reign of Tipú Sultán…Translated from an Original Persian Manuscript … by W. Miles (London, 1842), p. 281Google Scholar.
2 For examples see Stronge, Susan, Tipu's Tigers (London, 2009)Google Scholar, and Buddle, Anne, The Tiger and the Thistle: Tipu Sultan and the Scots in India 1760–1800 (Edinburgh, 1999)Google Scholar.
3 Narrative sketches of the Conquest of the Mysore: effected by the British Troops and their allies, in the capture of Seringapatam, and the death of Tippoo Sultaun, May 4, 1799 …. 2nd edition (London, 1800), p. 110.
4 Parts of this paper have been the subject of talks at the British Library and the Royal Asiatic Society. I am grateful to colleagues who have responded with additional ideas and comments.
5 Copy, dated 8 August 1799 of letter from William Kirkpatrick to the Governor-General. British Library (BL) Mss Eur E196, ff. 19–22.
6 See Sims-Williams, Ursula, “Revisiting the provenance of the Sindbadnamah (IO Islamic 3214)”, https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2016/06/revisiting-the-provenance-of-the-sindbadnamah-io-islamic-3214.html.
7 Dating from the year of the Prophet's birth which was considered to be 13 years earlier than the hijra.
8 BL IO Islamic 4683, f. 24r: original document listing days for official salutes, dated Zaffarabad 26 Haidari in the year Jalau ah 1197 (1783).
9 Price, David, Memoirs of the Early Life and Service of a Field Officer (London, 1839), pp. 432–433Google Scholar.
10 Punganuri, Ram Chandra Rao, Memoirs of Hyder and Tippoo: Rulers of Seringapatam, Written in the Mahratta Language; translated by C. P. Brown (Madras, 1849), p. 37.
11 Featured in the BBC ‘A History of the World’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/FrnGGcQgRPyd2MD6eQKaEw). I am grateful to Hazel Basford, Archivist at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Quex Park for supplying additional photographs and information.
12 NMS A.1878.1 (https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/collection-search-results/?item_id=394091). I thank my colleague Saqib Baburi for bringing this to my attention.
13 Dirom, Alexander, A narrative of the Campaign in India, which terminated the war with Tippoo Sultan in 1792 (London, 1793), pp. 250–252 and Appx. III.
14 Arberry, A. J. The Koran interpreted (London, 1955).
15 Dirom, A narrative, p. 252.
16 Dirom, A narrative, p. 287.
17 RCIN 65358 (https://www.rct.uk/collection/65358/seal).
18 See for example documents dated 15 Jaʻfari, year Azal ah 1198 (1784), and 1 Ahmadi, year Dalv ah 1200 (1786) in BL IO Islamic 4683, a collection of fifteen original documents bound together in one volume.
19 See Kirkpatrick, W., Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries … London, 1811Google Scholar, especially his notes on the calendar and mawludi era, pp. xxvi-xxxvii; also Henderson, J. R., The coins of Haidar Alī and Tīpū Sultān. Madras, 1921. p. 28Google Scholar.
20 This practice was not, however, unique. For more on this see pp. 103–105 in Gallop, Annabel Teh, “Dates on Malay seals: a study of Arabic numerals from Southeast Asia,” Jurnal Filologi Melayu, vol 22 (2015), pp. 89–114Google Scholar.
21 Kirkpatrick, Select Letters, p. xxxi.
22 The first year of the mawludi era is sometimes reckoned as ad 1786–87, but fortunately some documents are dated in both the mawludi and the hijri era which confirms a start date of 1787–88.
23 For example his Fatavā-yi Muḥammadī, legal decisions (BL IO Islamic 1663), Mu'ayyid al-mujāhidīn (Fig. 3), Zād al-mujāhidīn on Muslim ethics (BL IO Islamic 2159 and 2734) and five copies of Fatḥ al-mujāhidīn, army regulations.
24 Moor, Edward. Oriental Fragments. London, 1834, pp. 22–23 and plate III. The present whereabouts of the ring is unknown.
25 IO Islamic 2379 and RAS Persian 171.
26 Shīr usually refers to a lion, but there is no doubt that tiger is implied here because of the babri ‘tiger’ stripe.
27 Kirkpatrick, Select letters, pp. 3–6 and Appx.C.
28 SOAS ms 12869: 2 works by Tipu Sultan, Fath ʻAli, Nawab of Mysore, 1753–1799.
29 BL IO Islamic 4683: a volume containing several documents from the beginning of Tipu's reign predating the first of his official seals.
30 BL IO Islamic 776. See appendix for details.
31 Kirmani, op. cit, p. 401, also Stewart, Charles, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the late Tippoo Sultan of Mysore (Cambridge, 1809)Google Scholar, p. v.
32 RAS Persian 310, Masnavīyāt-i Ẓafar Khān. Now housed at Cambridge University Library it has been digitised as part of the Royal Asiatic Society digital collections (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RAS-00310/1) thanks to the sponsorship of Barbara Brend dedicatee of this article.
33 For more, especially on the content of this work, see Sharma, Sunil, Mughal Arcadia (Harvard, 2017), pp. 143–155Google Scholar.
34 Bishan Das, active from the early 17th century, one of Jahangir's favourite artists who in 1613 was sent on a diplomatic mission to the court of Shah ʻAbbas in Iran.
36 Losty, J. P., The Art of the Book in India (London, 1982), p. 100.
37 Mss Eur/E196, ff. 70r-82v: Copy of List of Selected Manuscripts for the Honble. The Court of Directors, dated 1 & 28 December 1799.
38 Ibid. f. 95r: List of Books selected by the Prize Agents for the Honorable Court of Directors, which are not to be found. Enclosure with copy of letter dated 17 February 1807 from William Hunter, Secretary to College Council, Fort William, to Thomas Brown, Chief Secretary to the Government of Bengal. Two Elliotts are mentioned in the Annals of the College of Fort William (Calcutta, 1819), one was John Bardoe Elliott whose collection was bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1859, the other was William Pearson Elliott who entered the College on 6 May 1801, about whom nothing appears to be known except that he distinguished himself in his Persian and Hindustani exams.
39 For example IO Islamic 4683, f. 171r, a covering note: “for his Highness’ consideration.”
40 An exception is IO Islamic 2116, al-Ḥiṣn al-ḥiṣīn which had belonged to Nawab ʻAbd al-Vahhab and includes Tipu's seal of am 1223 (1795/6).
41 Dilavar Khan was ruler of Sira from 1726–1756 when it was taken by the Marathas. Conquered by Hyder ʻAli in 1761(?), lost and then retaken by Tipu for his father in 1774.
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