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INTRODUCTORY
HAIDAR ALI’S ANCESTORS. THE MYSORE DYNASTY.
THE terrible uprising in India in 1857, commonly called the Mutiny, has to some extent obliterated the recollection of previous events in that country; but two generations ago most people had heard of the siege of Seringapatam, while readers of the Waverley Novels were familiar with the slight story called ‘The Surgeon’s Daughter’. In both cases the scene lay in that part of India now known as Mysore (Maisur), which was the cradle of one of the most daring and successful adventurers recorded in the annals of the East, and perhaps the most formidable adversary whom the British ever encountered in that region. The name of this leader of men was Haidar Ali, and although the kingdom founded by him lasted only during his own time and that of his son, Tipu Sultan - a brief space of some thirty-eight years - this short period was fruitful of events which tended to consolidate British power in India as the paramount authority.
In Hindustan, as elsewhere, when any man of vigour and energy has raised himself to a throne, it is not difficult to find for him a pedigree showing his noble descent, and it is not therefore surprising that native annalists should endeavour to prove that Haidar came from the famous race of the Koresh. According to their accounts, one of his ancestors named Hasan, who claimed Yahya as his progenitor, left Baghdad, and came to Ajmere in India, where he had a son called Wali Muhammad. This person, having quarrelled with an uncle, made his way to Gulbarga in the Deccan, and had a son named Ali Muhammad, who eventually migrated to Kolar in the eastern part of Mysore, where he died about the year 1678, having had four sons, the youngest of whom was named Fatah Muhammad1. Fatah Muhammad was not long in finding military employment, and by his prowess at the siege of Ganjikota won applause, and preferment at the hands of the Subahdar or Sira, being raised to the rank of Nayak; but on a change of Subahdars, he tried to better his fortunes, first at Arcot, and then at Chittur. Eventually he returned to Mysore, was made a Faujdar, or military commander, and received Budikoto as a jagir or appanage. He married first a Sayyadani, by whom he had three sons, and subsequently two sisters (permissible by the law of Islam), whose father was a Navayat of the race of Hashim. By the younger of these ladies he had two sons, Shahbaz or Ismail and Haidar2 (the Lion), the latter of whom eventually usurped the sovereignty of Mysore.
It would occupy too much space to relate the, former history of the territory now called Mysore3, but it may be stated that at no time prior to Haidar Ali had the whole of it been governed by one ruler, or been known by this name. The ancient Hindu dynasties of Kadambas, Gangas, Chalukyas, and others, which ruled parts of it from the fifth to the twelfth centuries, had passed away, leaving no annals save those recorded on their stone-grants4. To them succeeded Jain rulers, whose memory is sustained by the beautifully carved temples at Halebid and Belur, while the ruins at Hampi attest the glory of the sovereigns of Vijayanagar.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century the country was occupied by petty chiefs called Palegars or Nayaks, who ruled various portions of it. Those of Bednur and Chitaldrug were the most important, but many of the smaller states were in course of time conquered and annexed by the Wodiars of Mysore proper, whose possessions on the death of Chikka Devaraj in 1704 comprised about half of the present Mysore kingdom. The history of these latter rulers, who claim a Kshatriya descent, has a certain amount of romantic interest attached to it, the first of the race who entered Mysore having been a Paladin named Vijayaraj, who at the close of the fourteenth century, with his brother Krishnaraj, left Dwarka in Kathiawar, and proceeded to the Karnatik country. On arriving at Hadinad near Mysore, they ascertained that the daughter of the local Wodiar or prince, a man of insane mind, was about to be forcibly married to a neighbouring chief who, in case of refusal, threatened to seize her father’s possessions. The brothers by stratagem slew the obnoxious suitor and annexed his territory, while Vijayaraj himself wedded the distressed damsel, adopting at the same time the tenets of the Lingayat faith5. Such was the commencement of the rule of the present Mysore sovereigns, who, though of noble descent, were, unlike most of their predecessors in the Karnatik, of foreign origin.
For a period of two hundred years they hold the status of petty chieftains only but in 1609 Raj Wodiar, seventh in descent from Vijayaraj, taking advantage of the weakness of the decaying Vijayanagar kingdom, to which Mysore was nominally subject seized the fortress of Srirangapatan (Seringapatam), and made it the scat of his government. Shortly afterwards he renounced the Lingayat faith, reverting to the worship of Vishnu, as practised by his ancestors. From this time he and his successors gradually extended their territory by conquest till, on the death of Chikka Devaraj, their possessions yielded a considerable revenues. In order to conciliate the Emperor Aurangzeb, who was said to contemplate the invasion of the Mysore country, Chikka Devaraj despatched an embassy in 1699 which was favourably received by the Great Mughal, who bestowed upon the Raja, as he was now styled, the title of Jaga Deva, and an ivory throne, which was afterwards used on the installation of his successors. Chikka Devaraj was a brave soldier and an excellent administrator, but those who followed him being incompetent rulers, all as in the case of the descendants of the famous Sivaji, fell virtually into the hands of the minister, the Rajas being mere puppets, who were put on the throne or deposed at the caprice of the leading men of the State. The direct descent ended in 1733 with the demise of Dodda Krishnaraj (or Krishnaraj the Elder), after which time new chiefs were elected at the pleasure of the Dalwai, or Commander-in-chief, who usurped all the functions of government.
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