Mysore (pronounced Mysore.ogg (help·info) in English; is the second-largest city in the state of Karnataka, India. It is the headquarters of the Mysore district and the Mysore division and lies about 146 km (91 mi) southwest of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. The name Mysore is an anglicised version of Mahishūru, which means the abode of Mahisha. Mahisha stands for Mahishasura, a demon from the Hindu mythology. The city is spread across an area of 128.42 km2 (50 sq mi) and is situated at the base of the Chamundi Hills.
Mysore is famous for the festivities that take place during the Dasara festival when the city receives a large number of tourists. Mysore also lends its name to the Mysore mallige, Mysore style of painting, the sweet dish Mysore Pak, Mysore Peta (traditional silk turban) and the garment called the Mysore silk saree.
Until 1947, Mysore was the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore which was ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty, except for a brief period in the late 18th century when Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan took power. The Wodeyars were patrons of art and culture and have contributed significantly to the cultural growth of the city, which has led to Mysore earning the sobriquet Cultural capital of Karnataka.
According to Hindu mythology, the area around Mysore was known as Mahishūru and was ruled by a demon, Mahishasura. The demon was killed by the Goddess Chamundeshwari, whose temple is situated atop the Chamundi Hills. Mahishūru later became Mahisūru and finally came to be called Maisūru, its present name in the Kannada language. The anglicised form of the name is Mysore.In December 2005, the Government of Karnataka announced its intention to change the English name of the city to Mysuru.This has been approved by the Government of India but the necessary formalities to incorporate the name change are yet to be completed.
The region where Mysore city stands now was known as Puragere till the 15th century. The Mahishūru Fort was constructed in 1524 by Chamaraja Wodeyar III (1513–1553), who later passed on the dominion of Puragere to his son Chamaraja Wodeyar IV (1572–1576). Since the 16th century, the name of Mahishūru (later Mysore and changed again to Mysuru by the Government of Karnataka on November 1 2007) has been commonly used to denote the city.During the rule of the Vijayanagara Empire, the Mysore Kingdom under Wodeyars, served as a feudatory. Mysore was the center of the Wodeyar administration till 1610 when Raja Wodeyar ousted the Vijayanagara governor at nearby Srirangapatna and made it his capital. With the demise of the Vijayanagara Empire in 1565, the Mysore Kingdom gradually achieved independence and became a sovereign state by the time of King Narasaraja Wodeyar (1637). When the kingdom came under the rule of Tipu Sultan, he demolished much of Mysore town to remove any traces of the Wodeyar rule.[8] After Tipu Sultan’s death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, the capital of the kingdom was moved back to Mysore.The administration was looked after by Diwan Purnaiah, since the Wodeyar king Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar was a minor. Purnaiah is credited to have been responsible for many improvements in the Mysore city, mainly in relation to public works.[9] In 1831, Mysore lost its status as the administrative centre of the kingdom when Mark Cubbon, the British commissioner, moved the capital to Bangalore. However it regained this status in 1881, when the British handed the power back to the Wodeyars. The city remained the capital of the Wodeyars till 1947 with Mysore Palace as the centre of administration.
Entrance to the Ambavilas Palace, commonly known as Mysore Palace
The Mysore municipality was established in 1888 and the city was divided into 8 wards. In 1897, an outbreak of bubonic plague killed nearly half of the population of the city.[14] With the establishment of the City Improvement Trust Board (CITB) in 1903, Mysore became one of the first cities in Asia to undertake a planned development of the city. When the Quit India Movement was launched in the early 1940s, Mysore city also played a part in it. Leaders of the independence movement like H. C. Dasappa and Sahukar Channayya were at the forefront during the agitations.[16] The Maharaja’s College hostel was the nerve centre from where the movement was controlled in the Mysore district and the Subbarayana Kere ground was an important location for public demonstrations.
After the Indian independence, Mysore city remained as a part of the Mysore State under India. Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, the then king of Mysore, was allowed to retain his titles and was nominated as the Rajapramukh of the state. He died in September 1974 and was cremated in Mysore city. Over the years, Mysore has become well known as a centre for tourism and the city has remained largely peaceful, except for occasional riots related to the Kaveri river water dispute.
A Pre-historic Brief:
The pre-historic culture of Karnataka, the hand-axe culture, compares favourable with the one that existed in Africa and is quite distinct from the pre-historic culture of North India. The early inhabitants of Karnataka knew the use of iron far earlier than the North, and iron weapons, dating back to 1200 B.C have found at Hallur in Dhaward district.
Early rulers:
The early rulers of Karnataka were predominantly from North India. Parts of Karnataka were subject to the rule of the Nandas and the Mauryas.
The Shathavahanas (30 B.C to 230 A.D of paithan) ruled over extensive areas in Northern Karnataka. Karnataka fell into the hands of the Pallavas of Kanchi. Pallavas domination was ended by indigenous dynasties, the Kadambas of Banavasi and the Gangas of Kolar, who dividedKarnataka between themselves.
The Kadambas
The Kadamba Dynasty was founded by Mayurasharman in c. 345 A.D. Subjected to some kind of humiliation at the Pallava capital, this young brahmin gave up his hereditary priestly vacation and took to the life of a warrior and revolted aganist the Pallavas. The Pallavas were forced to recognise him as a sovereign when he crowned himself at Banavasi in Uttar Kannada Dt. One of his successors, Kakustha Varman (c. 435-55) was such a powerful ruler that even the Vakatakas and the guptas cultivated martial relationship with this family during his time. The great poet Kalidasa deems to have visited his court.
The Gangas
The Gangas started their rule from c. 350 from Kolara and later their capital was shifted to Talakadu (Mysore Dt.). Till the advent of the Badami Chalukyas, they were almost a sovereign power. Later they continued to rule ove Gangavadi (which comprised major parts of SouthKarnataka) till the close of the 10th century as subordinates of the Badami Chalukyas and the Rastrakutas.
The Badami Chalukyas
It is the Chalukyas of Badami who brought the whole of Karnataka under a single rule. They are also remembered for their contributions in the feild of art. Their monuments are found at Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal. The first great prince of the dynasty was Pulikeshin I (c. 540-66 A.D) who built the ashwamedha (horse sacrifice) after subduing many rulers including the Kadambas.
His grandson, Pulikeshin II (609-42) built a vast empire which extended from Narmada in the north to the Cauveri in the south. In the east, he overthrew the Vishnukundins and appointed his younger brother Vishnuvardhana, the voceroy of Vengi.
The Chalukyan empire included not only the whole of karnataka and Maharashtra, but the greater part of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andra, and also parts of Orissa and Tamilnadu. Vikramaditya II (693-734) in the line defeated the Pallavas, entered the Pallava capital Kanchi victorious. The Chalukyan power was weakened in the long run by its wars with the Pallavas.
The Rastrakutas
In 753, Danthidurga, the Rastrakuta feudatory of the Chalukyas, overthrew the Chalukya king Keerthivarman II, and his family inherited the fortunes of the Chalukyas. The engraving of the celebrated monolithic Kailas temple at Ellora (now in Maharshtra) is attribuited to Danthidurga’s uncle, Krishna I (756-74). Krishna’s son, Dhruva (780-93) crossed the Narmada, and after defeating celebrated princes like Vathsaraja (of the Gurjara Pratheehara family of central India) and Dharmapala of Bengal, extracted tribute from the ruler of Kanauji, ‘the seat of India’s paramountry’. His son Givinda III (793-814) also repeated the feast when he defeated Nagabhata II, the Gujara Pratheehara and Dharmapala of Bengal and again extracted tribute from the King of Kanauj.The achievements of the Chalukyas of Badami and the Rastrakutas by defeating the rulers of Kanauj have made their erathe “Age of ImperialKarnataka”.
The Kalyana Chalukyas
The Chalukyas of Kalyana overthrew the Rastrakutas in 973, Someshwara I (10432068), succeeded in resisting the efforts of the Cholas to subdueKarnataka, and he built a new capital, Kalyana (mordern Basava Kaluyana in Bidar Dt.) The Chola king Rajadhiraja was killed by him at Koppar in 1054.
His son Vikramaditya VI (10762127) has been celebrated in history as the patron of the great jurist Vijnaneshwara, (work: mitakshara, standard work on Hindu law), and the emperor has been immortalised by poet Dilhana (haling from Kashmir) who chose this prince himself as the hero for his sanskrit poem, Vikramankadeva Charitam. Vikramaditya defeated the Paramaras of Centeral India thrice.In the South he captured Kanchi from the Cholas in 1085, and in the East, he conqured Vengi in 1093. His commander, Mahadeva built the Mahadeva temple at Itagi (Raichur Dt.) the finest Chalukyan monument. His son Someshwara III (1127-39) was a great scholar. He has written Manasollasa, a sanskrit encyclopedia and Vikrmankabhyudayam, a peom of which his father is the hero,
The Sevunas
The Sevunas (or Yadavas) who were foundatories of the Rastrakutas and the chalukyas of Kalyana, became a sovereign power from the days of Bhillama V (1173-92) who founded the newcapital Devagiri (modern Daulathabad in Maharastra). Bhillama V captured Kalyana in 1186, and later clashed with Hoysala Ballala II at Sorarturu in 1190. Though he lost the battle.He built a vast kingdom, extending from the Narmada to the Krishna. His son Jaitugi (1192-99) not only defeated Parmara Subhata varma, but also killed the Kakatiya kings of Orangal, Rudra and Mahadeva.
Singhana II (11992247), the greatest of the Sevunas, extended the Sevuna kingdom upto the Tungabhadra. But the Servunas were defeated by the army of the Delhi Sultan in 1296, and again in 1307 and finally in 1318, and thus the kingdom was wiped out. The Sevunas have become in immortal in history by the writings of the mathematician Baskarasharya, of the great writer on music, Sharngadeva, and of the celebrated scholar Hemadri.
The Hoysalas
The Hoyasala continued the great traditions of their art-loving overlords the Kalyana Chalukyas, and their fine temples are found at Beluru, Helebidu and Somanathapura. Vishnuvardhana (11082141) freed Gangavadi from the Cholas (who had held it from 999), and in ommemoration of his victory, built the celebrated Vijayanarayana (Chennakeshva) Temple at Belur.
His commander Katamalla built the famous Hoysaleshwara temple at Halebidu.
Though Vishnuvardhana did not succeed in his serious effort to overthrow the Chalukyan yoke, his grandson Balla II (11732220) not only became free, but even defeated Sevuna Bhillama V at Soraturu in 1190, after having defeated Chalukyas Someshwara IV in 1187. When the Cholas were attacted by the Pandyas in Tamilnadu, Balla II drove the Pandyas back and thus assumed the title “Establisher of the Chola Kingdom”. Later, in the days of his son Narasimha II (1120-35), Hoysalas even secured a foothold in Tamilnadu and Kuppam, near Srirangam became a secondcapital of the Hoysalas.
Ballala III (12912343), the last Hoysala, had to struggle hard to hold his own against the invasion of the Delhi Sultan. He died fighting the Sultan of Madhurai. It was his commanders, Harihara and Bukka, who founded the Vijayanagra Kingdom, which later grew to be an empire. Hoyasala age saw great kannada poets like Rudrabhatta, Janna, Harihara and Raghavanka. Hoysala temples at Beluru, Halebidu, Somanathapur, Arasikere, Amritapura etc., are wonderful works of art.
Vijayanagara Empire
When the armies of the Delhi Sultanate destroyed the four great kingdom of the south (the Sevunas, Kakatiyas of Orangal, Hoysalas and of the Pandyas of Madhurai) it looked as if a political power following a religion quite alien to the South was going to dominate the peninsula. Many princes including heroic Kumara Rama, a fudatory from Kamapila in Bellary dist. perished while resisting the onslaughts. When the Vijayanagara Kingdom was founded by the Sangama brothers, people wholeheartedly supported them. Tradition says that sage Vidyaranya had caused a shower of gold to finance the Sangama brothers. Perphaps the sage succeeded in securing financial help from various quarters for the founders of Vijayanagara . Harisha founded the kingdom in about 1336, and he secured control over northern parts ofKarnataka and Andhra iron coasts. After the death of Ballala III (1343) and his son Virupaksha Ballala (in 1346), the whole of the Hoysala dominion came under his control. His brother Bukka (1356-77) succeeded in destroying the Madhurai Sultanate. It is this prince who sponsored the writing of the monumental commentary on the vedas: Vedarthaprakasha; the work was completed in the days of his son Harihara II (13772404)
Krishnadevaraya (15092529) was the greatest emperor during his time. He was also a great warrior, scholar and administrator. He secured Raichur Doab in 1512, and later marched victorious into the capitals of his enemies like Bidar (1512) Bijapur (1523) and in the East, Cuttack (1518), the capital of the Gajapatis. His rule saw the reign of peace and prosperity.
In the days of Aravidu Ramaraya (1542-65), Krishnadevaraya’s son-in-law, the four Shashi Sultans attacked the empire, and after killing Ramarya at Rallasathangadi (Rakkasagi-Tangadagi) in 1565, destroyed the capital Vijayanagara.
The Last Rulers:
With the weakening of the Mughul power in the North, the Marathas came to have control over the northern districts of Karnataka. Haidar Ali, Who used power from the Wodeyars of Mysore, merged the Keladi Kingdom in Mysore in 1763. Karnataka came under British rule after the overthrow of Tipu, Haidar’s son in 1799 and the Marathas in 1818 (When the Peshwa was defeated). After having been subjected to a number of administrations during the British rule, Karnataka became a single state in 1956.
Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760)
The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760) is the political history of the contiguous historical regions of Mysore state and Coorg province located on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India (Map 1), beginning with the fall of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in 1565 and ending just before the rise of Sultan Haidar Ali in 1761.
During the height of the Vijayanagara Empire (1350–1565), the Mysore and Coorg region was ruled by motley chieftains, or rajas (“little kings”), each having dominion over a small area, and each supplying soldiers and annual tribute for the empire’s needs. Soon after the empire’s fall and the subsequent eastward move of the diminished ruling family, many chieftains, especially in the west, tried to loosen their imperial bonds and expand their realms. Sensing opportunity amidst the new uncertainty, various powers from the north, the Sultanate of Bijapur to the northwest, the Sultanate of Golconda to the northeast, the fledgling Maratha empire, farther northwest, and the Mughal empire, farther north still, invaded the region intermittently. For much of the seventeenth century the tussles between the little kings and the big powers, and amongst the little kings themselves, resulted in shifting sovereignties, loyalties, and borders. By the turn of the eighteenth century, the political landscape had become better defined: the northwestern hills were being ruled by the Nayaka rulers of Ikkeri, the southwestern, in the Western Ghats, by the Rajas of Coorg, the southern plains by the Wodeyar rulers of Mysore, Hindu dynasties all; whereas the eastern and northeastern regions had fallen to the Muslim Nawabs of Arcot and Sira. Of these, Ikkeri and Coorg were independent, Mysore, although much expanded, was formally a Mughal dependency, and Arcot and Sira, Mughal subahs (or provinces).
The stability, however, was not to last. Mysore‘s expansions had been based on unstable alliances. When the alliances began to unravel, as they did during the next half century, political decay set in, presided over inevitably by pageant kings. The Mughal governor, Nawab of Arcot, in a display of the still far-flung reach of a declining Mughal empire, raided the Mysore capital, Seringapatam, to collect unpaid taxes; the neighbouring Raja of Coorg began a war of attrition with Mysore over western territory; and soon, the Maratha empire invaded again and exacted more concessions of territory. In the chaotic last decade of this period, a little-known Muslim cavalryman, Haidar Ali, seized power in Mysore. Under him, in the decades following, Mysore was not only to expand again—and to do so prodigiously—to match in size southern India itself, but also to pose the last serious threat to the new rising power on the subcontinent, the English East India Company.
A common feature of all large regimes in the region during the period 1565–1760 is increased military fiscalism. This mode of creating income for the state, comprising extraction of tribute payments from local chiefs under threat of military action, differed both from the more segmentary modes of preceding regimes and the more absolutist modes of succeeding ones—the latter achieved through direct tax collection from citizens. Another common feature of these regimes is the fragmentary historiography devoted to them, making broad generalizations difficult.
Poligars of Vijayanagara, 1565–1635
The last Hindu empire in South India, the Vijayanagara Empire, was defeated on January 23, 1565 in the Battle of Talikota by the combined forces of the Muslim states of Bijapur, Golconda, and Ahmadnagar to its north. The battle was fought in Talikota on the doab (or “tongue” of land) between the Kistna river and its major left bank tributary, the Bhima, 100 miles north of the imperial capital of Vijayanagara (see Map 2). The invaders later destroyed the capital, and the ruler’s family escaped to Penukonda, 125 miles southeast, where they established their new capital. Soon they moved their capital another 175 miles east-southeast to Chandragiri, not far from the southeastern coast, and survived there until 1635, their dwindling empire concentrating its resources on its eastern Tamil and Telugu speaking realms. According to historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam: ” … in the ten years following 1565, the imperial centre of Vijayanagara effectively ceased to be a power as far as the western reaches of the peninsula were concerned, leaving a vacuum that was eventually filled by Ikkeri and Mysore.”Earlier, in the heyday of their rule, the kings of Vijayanagara had granted tracts of lands throughout their realm to various vassal chiefs on the stipulation that they pay tribute and render military service.The chiefs in the northern regions were supervised directly from the capital. Those in the richer, more distant southern provinces, however, could not be controlled easily and the Vijayanagara emperors were able to collect only part of the annual revenue from them.Overseen by a viceroy—titled Sri Ranga Raya and based in the island town of Seringapatam on the river Kaveri (also Cauvery), some 200 miles south of the capital—the southern chiefs bore various formal titles. These included the title Nayaka, assumed by the chiefs of Kelladi in the northwestern hills, of Basavapatna, and Chitaldroog in the north, of Belur in the west, and of Hegalvadi in the centre; the title Gowda, assumed by the chiefs of Ballapur and of Yelahanka in the centre, and of Sugatur in the east; and Wodeyar, assumed by the rulers of Mysore,of Kalale and of Ummatur in the south.
The somewhat tenuous hold the Vijayanagara centre had on its southern periphery resulted only partly from the latter’s remoteness. The centralisation imposed by the empire was resisted by the southern chiefs (sometimes called rajas, or “little kings”) for moral and political reasons as well; according to historian Burton Stein:
‘Little kings’, or rajas, never attained the legal independence of an aristocracy from both monarchs and the local people whom they ruled. The sovereign claims of would-be centralizing, South Indian rulers and the resources demanded in the name of that sovereignty diminished the resources which local chieftains used as a kind of royal largess; thus centralizing demands were opposed on moral as well as on political grounds by even quite modest chiefs.
These chiefs came to called poligars, a British corruption of “Palaiyakkarar” (Tamil: holder of “palaiya” or “baronial estate”).
A late 18th century inkwash drawing of Channapatna fort established by Jagadeva Raya in 1580
Meanwhile, almost a decade after their victories at Talikota, the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar agreed in 1573 not to interfere in each other’s future conquests by reserving regions to the south for Bijapur. In 1577, Bijapur forces attacked again and overwhelmed all opposition along the western coast. Easily taking Adoni, a former Vijayanagara stronghold, they attempted next to take Penukonda, the new Vijayanagara capital. (See Map 3).) There, however, they were repulsed by an army led by the Vijayanagra ruler’s father-in-law, Jagadeva Raya, who had traveled north for the engagement from his base in Baramahal. For his services, Jagadeva Raya’s territories within the crumbling empire were vastly expanded, extending westward now up to the Western Ghats, the mountain range running along the southwestern coast of India, and with a new capital in Channapatna
The territories controlled by the other poligars were also changing fast.Some, such as Tamme Gowda of Sigatur, expanded theirs by performing services for the Vijayanagara monarch and receiving territorial rewards. In Tamme Gowda’s case, the rewards consisted of a tract of land which, from his base in Sigatur, extended west to Hoskote and east to Punganur. Others, such as the Wodeyars of Ummattur and of Mysore (now Mysore district), achieved the same end by ignoring the monarch altogether, and annexing small states in their vicinity.Through much of the 16th century, the chiefs of Ummattur in particular had carried on “unceasing aggression” against their neighbors, even in the face of punitive raids by the Vijayanagara armies. In the end, as a compromise, the son of a defeated Ummatur chief was appointed the viceroy at Seringapatam. The Wodeyars of Mysore too were eying surrounding land; by 1644, when the Wodeyars unseated the powerful Changalvas of Piriyapatna, not only had they become the dominant presence in the southern regions of what later became Mysore state, but the Vijayanagara empire was also on its last legs, having only a year’s life left.
Bijapur, Marathas, Mughals, 1636–1687
The Sultans of Bijapur, for their part—some sixty years after their defeat at Penukonda—regrouped and struck again in 1636. They did so now with the blessing of the Mughal empire of Northern India, whose tributary states they had recently become.They had also the help of a Maratha chieftain of western India, Shahaji Bhonsle, who was on the lookout for rewards of jagir land in the conquered territories, and whose son, Shivaji Bhonsle was to found the Maratha Empire some 30 years later
In the east, the Bijapur-Shahji forces had better success; in 1639, they took possession of gold-rich Kolar district and soon of Bangalore, a city founded a century earlier by Kempe Gowda I, and to become, two centuries later, a hub of British presence. Next, moving down the Eastern Ghats, the range of mountains rising behind the coastal plains of southeastern India, they captured the historic towns of Vellore and Gingee. Returning north through the east-central maidan plain (average elevation 600 m (1,969 ft)), they gained possession of the towns of Ballapur, Sira, and the hill fortress of Chitaldroog.
A new province named Caranatic-Bijapur-Balaghat, consisting of possessions such as Kolar, Hoskote, Bangalore, and Sira, and situated above (or westwards of) the Eastern Ghats range, was soon incorporated into the Sultanate of Bijapur and granted to Shahji as a jagir, or temporary gift. The possessions below the Ghats, such as Gingee and Vellore became part of another province, named Carnatic-Bijapur-Payanghat, whose first governor was none other than Shahji again. When Shahji died in 1664, his son, Venkoji, from his second wife, who meanwhile had become the ruler of Tanjore farther south, inherited these territories.This twist of fate, however, did not sit well with Shivaji—Shahji’s oldest son, from his first wife—who now led an expedition southwards to claim his fair share. Shivaji’s quick victories resulted in a partition, whereby both the Carnatic-Bijapur provinces became his dominions, and whereas Tanjore was retained by Venkoji.
The successes of Bijapur and Shivaji were being watched warily by the major imperial presence on the subcontinent, the Mughal Empire in North India.Having become the Mughal emperor in 1659, Aurengzeb, soon set himself upon destroying the Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, the latter famous for its diamond mines, as well as the burgeoning Maratha power of Shivaji.In 1686, the Mughals took Bijapur and, the following year, Golconda. Before long, fast moving Mughal armies were bearing down on the former Vijayanagara dominions.In 1687, a new Mughal province (or suba) was created with capital at Sira.Bangalore, quickly taken by the Mughals from the Marathas, was sold to the Wodeyar of Mysore for 3 lakh rupees. Qasim Khan was appointed the first Mughal Faujdar Diwan (literally, “military governor”) of the Province of Sira.
Wodeyars of Mysore, 1610–1760
Although their own histories date the origins of the Wodeyars of Mysore (also “Odeyar”, “Udaiyar”, “Wodiyar”, “Wadiyar”, or “Wadiar”, and, literally, “chief”) to 1399, records of them go back no earlier than the early sixteenth century,and according to Subrahmanyam 2001 even the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries.These poligars are first mentioned in a Kannada language literary work from the early 16th century. A petty chieftain, Chamaraja (now Chamaraja III), who ruled from 1513 to 1553 over a few villages not far from the Kaveri river, is said to have constructed a small fort and named it, Mahisura-nagara (literally, “buffalo town”), from which Mysore gets its name. This wodeyar clan issued its first inscription during the chieftaincy of Timmaraja (now Timmaraja II) who ruled from 1553 to 1572.Towards the end of his rule, he is recorded to have owned 33 villages and fielded an army of 300 men.By the time of the short-lived incumbency of Timmaraja II’s son, Chama Raja IV—who, already well into his 60s, ruled from 1572 to 1576—the Vijayanagara Empire had been dealt its fatal blow. Before long, Chama Raja IV withheld payment of the annual tribute to the now weakened empire’s viceroy at Seringapatam.The viceroy responded by attempting to arrest Chamaraja IV; in this, however, he failed, and the taxes remained unpaid. An outright military challenge to the empire would have to await the incumbency of Raja I, Chama Raja IV’s eldest son, who became the Wodeyar in 1574. Early in 1610, Raja I captured Seringapatam and, in a matter of days, on 8 February 1610, moved his capital there. During his rule, according to Stein 1987, his “chiefdom expanded into a major principality”.
In 1638, the reins of power fell into the hands of the 23-year-old Kanthirava Narasaraja I, who, a few months earlier, had been adopted by the widow of Raja I. Kanthirava was the first wodeyar of Mysore to create the symbols of royalty, such as a royal mint, and went on to issue coins named Kanthiraya (corrupted to “Canteroy”) after himself.These remained a part of Mysore‘s “current national money” well into the eighteenth century.
Catholic missionaries, who had arrived in the coastal areas of southern India—the southwestern Malabar coast, the western Kanara coast, and the southeastern Coromandel coast (also “Carnatic”)—beginning early in the sixteenth century, did not start work in land-locked Mysore until half way through the seventeenth. (See Map 5). The Mysore mission was established in Seringapatam in 1649 by Leonardo Cinnami, an Italian Jesuit from Goa. Expelled a few years later from Mysore on account of opposition in Kanthirava’s court, Cinnami returned, toward the end of Kanthirava’s rule, to establish missions in half a dozen locations. During his second stay Cinnami obtained permission to convert Kanthirava’s subjects to Christianity. He was successful mostly in the eastern regions, later part of the Madras Presidency of British India. According to (Subhrahmanyam 1985, p. 209), “Of a reported 1700 converts in the Mysore mission in the mid-1660s, a mere quarter were Kannadigas (Kannada language speakers), the rest being Tamil speakers from the western districts of modern-day Tamilnadu, …”[22] Married ten times, the ruler died on 31st July 1659, at the age of 44. At his funeral, all his surviving wives killed themselves by committing sati on his funeral pyre.
After an unremarkable period of rule by short-lived incumbents, in 1672, Kanthirava’s 27-year-old grand nephew, Chikka Devaraja, became the new wodeyar. During his rule, centralized military power increased to an unprecedented degree for the region. (See Map 5 and Map 7.) Introducing various mandatory taxes on peasant-owned land, Chikka Devaraja, however, exempted his soldiers’ land from these payments.[24] The perceived inequity of this action, the unusually high taxes, and the intrusive nature of his regime, created wide protests which had the support of the wandering Jangama ascetics in the monasteries of the Virasaivas, a monotheistic religious order that emphasizes a personal relationship with the Hindu god Shiva. According to Nagaraj 2003, a slogan of the protests was:
Basavanna the Bull tills the forest land; Devendra gives the rains;
Why should we, the ones who grow crops through hard labor, pay taxes to the king?[28]
The king, resolving upon a “treacherous massacre”, used the stratagem of inviting over 400 hundred monks to a grand feast at the famous Shaivite center of Nanjanagudu and, upon its conclusion, presenting them with gifts and directing them to exit one at a time through a narrow lane where they were each strangled and beheaded by waiting royal wrestlers. According to Mark Wilks, quoted in Rice 1897a, “Circular orders had been sent for the destruction, on the same day, of all the Jangam muts (places of residence and worship) in his dominions; and the number reported to have been in consequence destroyed was upwards of seven hundred.” This “sanguinary measure” had the effect of stopping cold all protests to the new taxes.
Around this time, 1687, Chikka Devaraja purchased the city of Bangalore for Rs. 3 lakhs from Qasim Khan, the new Mughal governor of the Province of Sira.Through the latter, Chikka Devaraja “assiduously cultivated an alliance” with Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. He also turned his attention to the regions that were less the objects of Moghul interest. The regions to the southeast below the Eastern Ghats mountains around Baramahal and Salem were annexed to Mysore, and, in 1694, regions in the southwest up to the Baba Budan mountains on the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, were added. Two years later Chikka Devaraja attacked lands farther south belonging to the Nayak ruler of Madurai (also “Madura”) and laid a siege of Trichinopoly.
After the death of Qasim Khan, his Mughal liaison, Chikka Devaraja sent a diplomatic mission to Emperor Aurangzeb at Ahmadnagar with the intention of either renewing his Mughal connections or seeking Mughal recognition of his southern conquests. In response, in 1700, it was said, the Mughal emperor sent the Mysore Raja a signet ring “bearing the title Jug Deo Raj (literally, “lord and king of the world”) and permission to sit on an ivory throne”. After the return of the mission, Chikka Devaraja reorganized his administration into eighteen departments, in “imitation of what the envoys had seen at the Mughal court”.When the Raja died on 16 November 1704, his dominions extended from Midagesi in the north to Palni and Anaimalai in the south, and from Coorg in the west to Baramahals in the east.[29] (See Map 5 and Map 7.) During his long reign of 31 years, he had made Mysore a “secure and prosperous state.”
However, according to Subrahmanyam 1989, the polity that Chikka Devaraja left for his son was “at one and the same time a strong and a weak” one. Although it had uniformly expanded in size from the mid-seventeenth century to the early eighteenth, it had done so a result of alliances that tended to hinder the very stability of the expansions. Some of the southeastern conquests (such as that of Salem), although involving regions that were not of direct interest to the Mughals, were nonetheless the result of alliances with the Mughal governor of Sira and with Venkoji, the Maratha ruler of Tanjore;the siege of Trichnopoly had to be abandoned because the alliance had begun to rupture.Similarly, in addition to allegedly receiving a signet ring, a consequence of the diplomatic mission sent to Aurangzeb in 1700 was formal subordination to Mughal authority and a requirement to pay annual taxes;there is evidence too that the administrative reforms Chikka Devaraja has instituted might have been a direct result of Mughal influence.
The early eighteenth century ushered in the rule of Kanthirava Narasaraja II, who, being both deaf and mute, ruled under the regency of a series of army chiefs (Delavoys) all of whom hailed from a single family from the village of Kalale in the Nanjangud taluk (or sub-district) of Mysore. Upon the ruler’s death in 1714 at the age of 41, his son, Dodda Krishnaraja I, still two weeks shy of his 12th birthday, succeeded him.
Around this time a change had come in the governance of the Mughal Province of Sira to the north and northeast of Mysore. In 1713, the province was split into a payanghat jurisdiction with capital at Arcot and governed by a newly styled Nawab of Arcot, and a balaghat jurisdiction with capital at Sira, and governed by an also newly-styled Nawab of Sira.That same year, the military governor of the old province, Sadat-ulla Khan, was made the new Nawab of Arcot, and another official, Amin Khan, was appointed Nawab of Sira;Since Mysore remained a formal tributary state of Sira, this division, and the resulting loss of revenue from the rich maidān plain of Mysore, provoked Sadat-ulla Khan’s displeasure. In collusion with the rulers of Kadapa, Kurnool, and Savanur and the Maratha Raja of Gutti, he decided to march against Dodda Krishnaraja I.[37] The Nawab of Sira, anxious to preempt the coalition’s action, hit upon a similar plan for reaching the Mysore capital, Seringapatam.In the end, both Nawabs—of Arcot and Sira—settled upon a joint invasion led by the former.Dodda Krishnaraja, for his part, was able to “buy off this formidable confederacy” by offering a tribute of Rs. 1 crore (10 million).[37] Although avoiding bloodshed, the outcome made Mysore vulnerable to similar future claims, which were made successfully two years later by Maratha raiders who appeared in the Mysore capital.[37] The resulting depletion of the Mysore treasury, led Mysore to attack and absorb the poligar chiefdom of Magadi to its north.
Wilks 1811 gave a decidedly negative appraisal of the ruler’s character:
Whatever portion of vigour or of wisdom appeared in the conduct of this reign belonged exclusively to the ministers, who secured their own authority by appearing with affected humility to study in all things the inclinations and wishes of the Raja (ruler). … he (Dodda Krishnaraja I) thought himself the greatest and happiest of monarchs, without understanding, or caring to understand, during a reign of nineteen years, the troublesome details through which he was supplied with all that is necessary for animal gratification.[38]
According to Rice 1897a, pp. 370, the ruler’s lack of interest in the affairs of state, led two ministers, Devaraja, the army chief (or delavayi), and his cousin, Nanjaraja, who was both the revenue minister (the sarvadhikari) and the privy councilor (pradhana), to wield all authority in the kingdom. After Dodda Krishnaraja’s death in 1736, the ministers appointed “pageant rajas”, and effectively ruled Mysore until the rise of Haidar Ali in 1760.[39]
Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1761–1799)
The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1761–1799) is the political history of the former Mysore State and Coorg province from the time of the rise of Haidar Ali in 1761 to that of the death of his son Tipu Sultan in 1799.
There is very little contemporaneous documentation of the pre-1760 period of Mysore‘s history, especially the last century of that period. According to (Subrahmanyam 1989, p. 206), the 18th-century Wodeyar rulers of Mysore—in contrast to their contemporaries in Rajputana, Central India, Maratha Deccan, and Tanjavur—left little or no record of their administrations.
A Wodeyar dynasty genealogy, the Maisüru Mahardjara Vamsävali of Tirumalarya, was composed in Kannada during the period 1710–1715, and was claimed to be based on all the then-extant inscriptions in the region. Another genealogy, Kalale Doregala Vamgdvati, of the Delvoys, the near-hereditary chief ministers of Mysore, was composed around the turn of the 19th century. However, neither manuscript provides information about administration, economy or military capability. The ruling dynasty’s origins, especially as expounded in later palace genealogies, are also of doubtful accuracy; this is, in part, because the Wodeyars, who were reinstated by the British on the Mysore gaddi in 1799, to preside over a fragile sovereignty, “obsessively” attempted to demonstrate their “unbroken” royal lineage, to bolster their then uncertain status.
The earliest manuscript offering clues to governance and military conflict in the pre-1760 Mysore, seems to be (Dias 1725), an annual letter written in Portuguese by a Mysore-based Jesuit missionary, Joachim Dias, and addressed to his Provincial superior.[ After East India Company’s final 1799 victory over Tipu, official Company records began to be published as well; these include (East India Company 1800), a collection of Anglo-Mysore Wars-related correspondence between the Company’s officials in India and Court of Directors in London, and (Wilks 1805), the first report on the new Princely State of Mysore by its first British resident, Mark Wilks. Around this time, French accounts of the Anglo-Mysore wars appeared as well, and included (Michaud 1809), a history of the wars by Joseph-François Michaud, another Jesuit priest. The first attempt at including a comprehensive history of Mysore in an English language work is (Buchanan 1807), an account of a survey of South India conducted at Lord Richard Wellesley’s request, by Francis Buchanan, a Scottish physician and geographer.
The first explicit History of Mysore in English is (Wilks 1811), written by Mark Wilks, the British resident mentioned above. Wilks claimed to have based his history on various Kannada documents, not only the ones mentioned above, but also many that have not survived. According to (Subrahmanyam 1989, p. 206), all subsequent classic histories of Mysore have borrowed heavily from Wilks’s book for their pre-1760 content. These include, (Rice 1897), Lewis Rice’s well-known Gazetteer and (Rao 1948), C. Hayavadana Rao’s major revision of the Gazetteer half a century later, and many spin-offs of these two works. By the end of the period of British Commissionership of Mysore (1831–1881), many English language works had begun to appear on a variety of Mysore-related subjects. These included (Rice 1879), a book of English translations of Kannada language inscriptions, and (Digby 1878), William Digby’s two volume critique of British famine policy during the Great Famine of 1876–78, which devastated Mysore for years to come; the latter work, even referred to Mysore as a “province.”
Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1800–1947)
The political history of Mysore and Coorg (1800–1947) is the political history of the contiguous historical regions of Mysore state and Coorg province located on the Deccan Plateau in west-central peninsular India, beginning with the acceptance of British suzerainty in 1800 to the independence of India in 1947.
In the amāni lands (i.e. government-managed lands) the tax on cultivation in dry regions was a fixed money amount paid annually at approximately one-third of the crop value; for a given area, the crop value, was estimated and fixed for several years at a time. In “wet” or rice-growing regions, however, which on average provided more abundant yields, but which also depended more on the vagaries of the monsoon rains, the crop value was estimated annually, as soon as an estimate could be made. The latter tax was computed at one-half of the crop value and was paid “nominally in kind,” but commonly in money.
here is very little contemporaneous documentation of the pre-1760 period of Mysore‘s history, especially the last century of that period. According to (Subrahmanyam 1989, p. 206), the 18th-century Wodeyar rulers of Mysore—in contrast to their contemporaries in Rajputana, Central India, Maratha Deccan, and Tanjavur—left little or no record of their administrations.
A Wodeyar dynasty genealogy, the Maisüru Mahardjara Vamsävali of Tirumalarya, was composed in Kannada during the period 1710–1715, and was claimed to be based on all the then-extant inscriptions in the region. Another genealogy, Kalale Doregala Vamgdvati, of the Delvoys, the near-hereditary chief ministers of Mysore, was composed around the turn of the 19th century.However, neither manuscript provides information about administration, economy or military capability. The ruling dynasty’s origins, especially as expounded in later palace genealogies, are also of doubtful accuracy; this is, in part, because the Wodeyars, who were reinstated by the British on the Mysore gaddi in 1799, to preside over a fragile sovereignty, “obsessively” attempted to demonstrate their “unbroken” royal lineage, to bolster their then uncertain status.
The earliest manuscript offering clues to governance and military conflict in the pre-1760 Mysore, seems to be (Dias 1725), an annual letter written in Portuguese by a Mysore-based Jesuit missionary, Joachim Dias, and addressed to his Provincial superior.After East India Company’s final 1799 victory over Tipu, official Company records began to be published as well; these include (East India Company 1800), a collection of Anglo-Mysore Wars-related correspondence between the Company’s officials in India and Court of Directors in London, and (Wilks 1805), the first report on the new Princely State of Mysore by its first British resident, Mark Wilks. Around this time, French accounts of the Anglo-Mysore wars appeared as well, and included (Michaud 1809), a history of the wars by Joseph-François Michaud, another Jesuit priest. The first attempt at including a comprehensive history of Mysore in an English language work is (Buchanan 1807), an account of a survey of South India conducted at Lord Richard Wellesley’s request, by Francis Buchanan, a Scottish physician and geographer.
The first explicit History of Mysore in English is (Wilks 1811), written by Mark Wilks, the British resident mentioned above. Wilks claimed to have based his history on various Kannada documents, not only the ones mentioned above, but also many that have not survived. According to (Subrahmanyam 1989, p. 206), all subsequent classic histories of Mysore have borrowed heavily from Wilks’s book for their pre-1760 content. These include, (Rice 1897), Lewis Rice’s well-known Gazetteer and (Rao 1948), C. Hayavadana Rao’s major revision of the Gazetteer half a century later, and many spin-offs of these two works. By the end of the period of British Commissionership of Mysore (1831–1881), many English language works had begun to appear on a variety of Mysore-related subjects. These included (Rice 1879), a book of English translations of Kannada language inscriptions, and (Digby 1878), William Digby’s two volume critique of British famine policy during the Great Famine of 1876–78, which devastated Mysore for years to come; the latter work, even referred to Mysore as a “province.”
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_Mysore_and_Coorg_(1761%E2%80%931799)\
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_Mysore_and_Coorg_%281800%E2%80%931947%29
http://www.karnataka.com/history
