Tipu Sultan, Muslim ruler of Mysore in southern India from 1782 to 1799, spent much of his reign fighting the British and their allies, the Marhattas. He was called the Tiger of Mysore because of his fierce battle prowess and his self-identification with the tiger which featured everywhere in his ambit. A life-sized tiger statue was the base if his jeweled throne; gold tiger heads glared from the canopy above his own. He had a mechanical tiger constructed that mauled and tore at the figure of a prone English soldier when turned on.
Tipu was also profoundly interested in dreams. He looked to his dreams for guidance on the future, especially the outcome of battles, and for direct access to tutelary spirits, including the Prophet himself. He recorded his dream in Persian in his own hand and kept his journal secret even from his closest advisers.
Tipu’s manuscript journal was discovered after he was killed in battle at Seringapatam in 1799. It was presented to the Court of Directors of the East India Company in 1800 by Alexander Beatson on behalf of the Governor-General, Marquess Wellesley. The story of its discovery is recorded in Beatson’s signed and dated note at the end of the volume:
This register of the Sultaun’s [sic] dreams was discovered by Colonel William
Kirkpatrick, amongst other papers of a secret nature in an escritoire found in
the Palace of Seringapatam. Hubbeeb Oollah, one of the most confidential of the
Sultaun’s servants, was present at the time it was discovered. He knew that
there was such a book of the Sultaun’s composition; but had never seen it, as
the Sultaun always manifested peculiar anxiety to conceal it from the view of
any who happened to approach while he was either reading or writing in it.[1]
A woman in man’s clothes
In the dream report numbered #13 in the translation of the
journal made by Mahmoud Husain for the Pakistan Historical Society. Tipu
describes what he saw before he went to battle against a Marhattaa force that
greatly outnumbered his own:
I had a dream: It seemed to me as
if a handsome young man, a stranger, came and sat down near me. I passed
certain remarks in the manner in which one might, in a playful mood, talk to a
woman. I then said to myself: “It is not my custom to enter into playful
discourse with anyone.”
Shortly thereafter, the youth rose,
and walking a few paces, returned to loosen his hair from beneath his turban,
and opening the fastenings of his robe, displayed his bosom, and I saw it was a
woman. I immediately called and seated her and said to her: “Whereas formerly I
had only guessed you were a woman, and I had cut jokes with you, it is now
definite that you are a woman in the dress of a man. My conjecture has come
true.”
In the midst of this conversation
the morning dawned, and I woke up. I conveyed the contents of the dream to
other people and interpreted it thus: That please God those Marhattas have put
on the clothes of men, but in fact will prove to be women.
The sultan saw his dream fulfilled. As he wrote, “By the favor of God and the aid of His Messenger on the morning of Saturday, I made a surprise attack upon the army of the unbelievers. Advancing with two or three hundred men, I myself penetrated the camp of the unbelievers, crushing them as I went and they all fled like women.” [2]
References
1.British Library IO Islamic 3563, f. 29v.
2. Tipu, Sultan. The Dreams of Tipu Sultan. Trans. Husain Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society Publications no. 7. n.d. [1957] pp.63-4.
Photo: Tipu's mechanical tiger is in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London
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