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Placing Tipu Sultan of Mysore's personal dream register in its textual and historical contexts reveals an internal logic to its structure and content that scholars have not previously recognised. An analysis of the manuscript as a whole suggests that it was compiled no earlier than 1795, as part of a range of strategies adopted by Tipu to ameliorate the position in which he found himself in the late 1790s. Isolated by his regional contemporaries and under increasing pressure from the British, he drew on a range of divinatory practices in an attempt to understand, and perhaps even influence, the outcome of events.

The death at the hands of British troops of Tipu Sultan Fath ‘Ali Khan (r. 1782–1799), the Muslim ruler of the predominantly-Hindu south Indian kingdom of Mysore, led to the discovery of an intrigu...

This book will appeal not only to historians but also to conservationists. As Julie Hughes notes, many protected areas in India were once Princely hunting grounds or shikargahs. For that reason, if...

A comparative study of some recorded dreams of two significant royal figures—Tipu Sultan of Mysore and Tsar Peter the Great of Russia—allows us to ask whether we can see similar processes at work. This is done in order to re-assess the view that Peter's actions in this regard reflected his curious nature and not a belief in the prognostic or divinatory qualities of dreams. By drawing on the latest scholarship on historical dreams and dreams in history, this re-assessment underlines the importance of cultural and historical context to the understanding of dreams and dream practices, as well as the close connection between dreaming and authority.

After the deaths in the early 1990s of the eminent anthropologists of Aboriginal Australia, Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt, their substantial personal collection of Asian art and artefacts entered the public domain. An examination of the place of the collection in the Berndts’ marriage reveals that it served both as a bonding mechanism and as a means of inquiry. In the latter sense, a nexus is identified between the couple's marriage, the Asian collection, and their anthropological research, which in turn contributes to our understanding of the personal impulses that drive and shape scientific inquiry.

Ronald and Catherine Berndt, eminent anthropologists of Aboriginal Australia, maintained a personal and professional interest in Asia throughout their almost fifty‐year marriage. Personally, this was expressed through their large private collection of Asian art and artefacts; professionally, they explored early Asian contacts with northern Australia, supported the development of Asian Studies in Australian universities—along with the forging of cross‐institutional relationships—and drew on Asia for cross‐cultural comparison. At the root of this interest lay the legacy of World War II, against which background the Berndts argued for increased engagement with Australia's regional neighbours, as well as for greater tolerance of cultural diversity.

In the early 1960s, the Australian anthropologist, Ronald M. Berndt, purchased a Victorian album containing forty-four Kalighat paintings from Bengal. The attraction of the album for Ronald and his wife Catherine, also an anthropologist, is examined here in the context of their work on Aboriginal Australia, revealing links between their public life and their personal collecting activities. The second part of the paper reconstructs the album's life history, prior to its acquisition by the Berndts. Owned previously by the artist Sir Hans Heysen, the album is shown to have been collected by the Australian Baptist Church's earliest missionaries to India. At the centre of the ownership of the paintings, from the time of their collection, lies their iconographic imagery: idolatrous to the eyes of the Christian missionaries, visually appealing to the artist and embodying rich religious and mythological meaning for the anthropologists.

The Waqai-i Manazil-i Rum is an important Indian document of the late 18th century. An incomplete account of Tipu Sultan of Mysore's embassy to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I, it provides a fascinating insight into the travails of sea voyages of the time, as well as descriptions of local conditions along the Persian Gulf. Of note is its frankness in reporting the internal squabbling, desertions and difficulties endured by the mission. A reassessment of the text, in the context of recent scholarly interest in travel writing, reveals similarities with other Muslim travelogues. In addition, questions are raised regarding the diary's authorship, in the light of Tipu's recently translated instructions to his envoys. © 2005, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

One of the more famous episodes in the narrative of British colonial expansion in India, and one that has been extensively mythologized, is the death in 1799 of Tipu Sultan and the fall of his capital, Srirangapattana. British troops, supported by their Indian allies—in particular, the forces of Hyderabad—stormed the island fortress on 4 May, bringing to an end the Mysore kingdom's role as the last significant indigenous power in the south. The old Hindu Wodeyar dynasty was reinstated and the kingdom itself was reduced to a landlocked state, with much of its territory redistributed among the victors. It is not the purpose of this article to attempt an analysis of why Tipu was defeated. Rather its aim is to underline the importance of returning to sources and re-examining evidence, even, or perhaps especially, if beliefs about a certain event have been held for so long. This is particularly true in the case of such an evocative and contentious figure as Tipu Sultan, whose life and legacy have been appropriated by interests in polemical debates over at least the last 150 years. As the following discussion will show, if one is to achieve a better understanding of an event such as the fall of Srirangapattana and its aftermath, a return to the sources is imperative.

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.