Soma Ghosh

Librarian and Media Officer, Salar Jung Museum, Ministry of Culture, Govt.of India, Hyderabad: 500002, INDIA

This article traces the journey of an iconic collection housed by Tipu Sultan at Srirangapatnam in present day Karnataka State of South India. Tipu Sultan was the ruler of Mysore from 1782 to 1799 A. D. He remains a most debated, yet fascinating person among rulers and his death at Srirangapatnam on 4th May 1799, is an important one in Indian history. Known as the ‘’Tiger of Mysore’’ he has gone down in history as one of the bravest warriors of all time. Tipu had learnt Persian, Arabic, Kannada, Telugu and Marathi. He learnt military arts under Ghazi Khan and the French. ’Mysuru’ or Mysore is on a plateau between the mountains of the Eastern and Western Ghats; named after the demon Mahisasura of the Mahisasuramardini legend of India, from the Devi Mahatmyam, the devi being worshipped as Chamundeshwari, at the famous temple at Chamundi Hills in Mysore. The ‘’Wodeyars’’ were the nominal rulers of Mysore. But its de facto ruler from 1782-1799 A.D, was Tipu Sultan. With his father Haider Ali who ruled as Sultan from 1761-1782 A.D, he is the only ruler to have successfully fought against the British forces. His capital was Srirangapatna or Seringapatnam, though he had a palace at Bangalore as well. Among his many treasures, his royal library at Srirangapatnam housed manuscripts on different subjects which was also dismantled after he fell, and sent to different places, as ‘’spoils of war’’, mostly British colonial destinations in early 19th century. The journey of the royal collection with some of its highlights and where it is preserved and provided to readers today in the 21st century, is the mainstay of this article, along with some illustrations to convey the story well. The collection is now at various locations in India and the United Kingdom. The British Library, London and New India Office, also at London, The National Archives, New Delhi and the Asiatic Society Office at Kolkata house many of his treasures. His collection included a variety of books on diffeent topics. Mentionable are the Kashf-al-Mahjub by Abul Hasan Ali bin Uthman bin ali Al Hujwiri on Sufism, Ain- i- Akbari by Abul Fazl, Majmua-i-Khurrami by Bahadur Singh, Alamgirnama on the rule of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, Tarikh-i-Alam-ara-ara-i-Abbasi on the reign of King Abbas of Persia by Iskandar. Tipu mainaitained a binding unit in his library and was an expert calligraphist who kept his own writings like Ahkamnamah, Iqrarnamah, Kayfiyat-i-vilayat-i-Faransis, Hukmnamah-i-Tipu Sultan among others. Also research is continuously being done and getting published on the Tipu Sultan collection, as a kind of outreach, which is elucidated here to evoke further interest in the topic.

Tipu Sultan, Seringapatnam, Srirangapatna, Library of Tipu Sultan, Mysore, Haidar Ali, Historical libraries, Rulers of Mysore, Library outreach, Spoils of War.

1) Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tipoo Sultan by Charles Stewart, London: Cambridge University Press, 1809.

2) History of Tipu Sultan by Muhibbul Hassan Khan, Calcutta : The Bibliophile Ltd, 1951.

3) Libraries and Librarianship in ancient and medieval India by Bimal Kumar Datta, Delhi : Atma Ram and Sons,1970.

4) Concise descriptive catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the collection of Asiatic Society of Bengal by Vladimir Ivanov, Calcutta : The Asiatic Society, 1985.

5) Catalogue of Manuscripts of The Fort William College Collection In The National Archives of India Library, ed by Dr. R.K. Perti, New Delhi : National Archives of India,1989.

6) Tipu Sultan by B. Sheik Ali, New Delhi : National Book Trust, 1995.

7) Tipu’s tigers by Susan Stronge, London : V&A Publishing, 2009.

8) 8.Sil, N. (2013). Tipu Sultan in History: Revisionism Revised. SAGE Open.

9) https://en.wikipedia.org

10) https://www.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/story-of-tipu-sultan-the-tiger-of-mysore-whose-tales-of-bravery-are-larger-thanlife-357039.html

11) https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/honour-for-a-monarch/article4810300.ece

12) https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2017/07/some-bindings-from-tipu-sultans-court.html

13) https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2018/04/making-his-mark-the-seals-of-tipu-sultan.html#

14) https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2016/06/revisiting-the-provenance-of-the-sindbadnamah-io-islamic-3214.html

15) Islamic Manuscripts in the British Royal Collection, Leiden 1994 via https://www.rct.uk/collection/1005001/the-holyquran

16) http://genius.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/browse/a-copy-of-the-quran/

17) Figure 1 – Courtesy, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, Telangana State

18) Figure 2 – Courtesy, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, Telangana State

19) Figure 3 - via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

20) Figure 4 - via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

21) Figure 5 - via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

22) Figure 6 -– Courtesy, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, Telangana State

23) Figure 7 - via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

24) Figure 8 – from ‘Views of Calcutta’, an album of paintings by William Wood.

25) Figure 9 - via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

26) Figure 10 – via Wikimedia Commons(Public domain)

27) Figure 11 - British Library, London (Public domain)

28) Figure 12 - British Library, London (Public domain).

VOlUME 01 ISSUE 03 SEPTEMBER 2022