Under the Crown
This is the tenth part of the series. Click here for Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9.
At the now famous Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan, once the Sarvadhikari and then, the ruler of Mysore, was killed in action. This ended the fourth and last of the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The British East India Company, who had fought Tipu, now controlled vast tracts of land throughout India, especially in the east and south. In the west the Marathas were still the prime power, while in the north, the one-eyed Sikh warrior, Ranjit Singh was on the verge of establishing the Sikh Empire.
Tipu and his father Hyder Ali had been de facto rulers of Mysore for around forty years, leaving the Wodeyars, the royal family of Mysore as only titular kings. In 1796, on the death of the last king, Chamaraja IX Wodeyar, Tipu had shed all pretensions and assumed total and complete control of the kingdom. On Tipu's death, the former queen as well as the former queen mother wrote to the British to revive the Wodeyar Dynasty. Around a couple of months after Tipu's death, on the thirtieth day of June, 1799, the young five year old prince ascended the throne as Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar of Mysore. The coronation took place near the Lakshmi Narayana Temple in Mysore and the boy king was flanked by the Duke of Wellington and Purnaiah, who had been the faithful Diwan of Tipu Sultan.
Mummadi Krishnaraja's rule would be the longest yet in the history of Mysore, lasting almost sixty-nine years. As a boy, the king was under the wings of the able and adroit Diwan Purnaiah, as well as that of his adoptive grandmother Lakshmi Ammanni. That old woman, had carefully preserved the lineages, watching with fury in the background as her own sons wasted away, under the reigns of Hyder and Tipu. She had adopted Chamaraja IX and guarded him viciously as well, biding her time, waiting for Tipu's fall. Now the formidable lady was the regent to Krishnaraja and back in a position of power.
In 1710, Krishnaraja turned sixteen and was given complete control of the kingdom. Mysore was now, a British Residency with three Commissioners presiding over three parts of the kingdom; in the east Bangalore, consisting of Bangalore, Kolar and the eastern parts; in the north, the Nagara Division, consisting of Shimoga, Kadur, Chitradurga and the erstwhile Nayaka strongholds of Nagara and Ikkeri; and finally the heart of the kingdom known as the Ashtagrama, with the capital of Mysore, Srirangapatna, Hassan and Maddur.
For around fifteen years, the arrangement carried on smoothly, but in the late 1820s, there seems to have been allegations and counter allegations of corruption, prompting the Company to take over complete control of the kingdom in 1831. The Company would continue to rule Mysore directly under the death of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar.
Krishnaraja was a polymath, a writer and a painter, as well as a connoisseur of board games. He was multilingual as well, reading and writing in Sanskrit, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Persian, along with a smattering of English. He wrote many works in Kannada including the Sritatthvanidihi, a work on iconography; and the Sougandhika Parinaya, a mythological novel about a South Indian king, Sougandhika, who falls in love with a Kalinga princess. The novel is beautifully illustrated with lithographs hand painted by the king himself. He also patronized, other writers and artists and commissioned architectural works. The Maharaja College, was established by him, as well as the Jaganmohan Palace, which the royalty used as an alternative place of residence. It is today an art museum.
Krishnaraja died without a male heir. But, he adopted his grandson to succeed him as Chamaraja X. Chamaraja was the son of Krishnaraja's youngest daughter, Putta Ammanni and Sardar Krishnaraja Urs. Like his grandfather, Chamaraja X was only five when he became king. He too was a patron of art and architecture. Apart from being a violin virtuoso himself, he was a prolific builder commissioning the Lal Bagh Glass House in Bangalore, the Fern Hill Palace in Ooty, and the Oriental Research Institute, the Dufferin Tower and Mysore Zoo.
Chamaraja X had five children; two sons and three daughters. He died of diphtheria, at the early age of just thirty one in 1794. He has ruled for twenty six of those thirty one years. Between Chamaraja X and his grandfather and adoptive father, Krishnaraja III, Mysore had seen close to a century. During this time, the Sikh Empire had been established, risen to power and then been destroyed by the British. The Maratha houses had all been either wiped out, or taken over by the British like Mysore itself. India had fought its First War of Independence, in the north and the east. Political movements had begun to involve the country and the common man and the Indian National Congress had been founded.
Mysore was far from insulated by these events. In 1881, after fifty years of direct rule by the British, Mysore had been handed back to Chamaraja X, and was now one of the princely states of India. In the same year, he had established the representative assembly of Mysore, becoming the first Indian prince to do so. The British had given him the title of Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, and Mysore was a twenty-one gun salute state, one of only five princely states of India in that rarefied status, with Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Baroda and Gwalior.
India and Mysore were now moving to a new age.
At the now famous Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan, once the Sarvadhikari and then, the ruler of Mysore, was killed in action. This ended the fourth and last of the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The British East India Company, who had fought Tipu, now controlled vast tracts of land throughout India, especially in the east and south. In the west the Marathas were still the prime power, while in the north, the one-eyed Sikh warrior, Ranjit Singh was on the verge of establishing the Sikh Empire.
Tipu and his father Hyder Ali had been de facto rulers of Mysore for around forty years, leaving the Wodeyars, the royal family of Mysore as only titular kings. In 1796, on the death of the last king, Chamaraja IX Wodeyar, Tipu had shed all pretensions and assumed total and complete control of the kingdom. On Tipu's death, the former queen as well as the former queen mother wrote to the British to revive the Wodeyar Dynasty. Around a couple of months after Tipu's death, on the thirtieth day of June, 1799, the young five year old prince ascended the throne as Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar of Mysore. The coronation took place near the Lakshmi Narayana Temple in Mysore and the boy king was flanked by the Duke of Wellington and Purnaiah, who had been the faithful Diwan of Tipu Sultan.
Mummadi Krishnaraja's rule would be the longest yet in the history of Mysore, lasting almost sixty-nine years. As a boy, the king was under the wings of the able and adroit Diwan Purnaiah, as well as that of his adoptive grandmother Lakshmi Ammanni. That old woman, had carefully preserved the lineages, watching with fury in the background as her own sons wasted away, under the reigns of Hyder and Tipu. She had adopted Chamaraja IX and guarded him viciously as well, biding her time, waiting for Tipu's fall. Now the formidable lady was the regent to Krishnaraja and back in a position of power.
In 1710, Krishnaraja turned sixteen and was given complete control of the kingdom. Mysore was now, a British Residency with three Commissioners presiding over three parts of the kingdom; in the east Bangalore, consisting of Bangalore, Kolar and the eastern parts; in the north, the Nagara Division, consisting of Shimoga, Kadur, Chitradurga and the erstwhile Nayaka strongholds of Nagara and Ikkeri; and finally the heart of the kingdom known as the Ashtagrama, with the capital of Mysore, Srirangapatna, Hassan and Maddur.
For around fifteen years, the arrangement carried on smoothly, but in the late 1820s, there seems to have been allegations and counter allegations of corruption, prompting the Company to take over complete control of the kingdom in 1831. The Company would continue to rule Mysore directly under the death of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar.
Krishnaraja was a polymath, a writer and a painter, as well as a connoisseur of board games. He was multilingual as well, reading and writing in Sanskrit, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Persian, along with a smattering of English. He wrote many works in Kannada including the Sritatthvanidihi, a work on iconography; and the Sougandhika Parinaya, a mythological novel about a South Indian king, Sougandhika, who falls in love with a Kalinga princess. The novel is beautifully illustrated with lithographs hand painted by the king himself. He also patronized, other writers and artists and commissioned architectural works. The Maharaja College, was established by him, as well as the Jaganmohan Palace, which the royalty used as an alternative place of residence. It is today an art museum.
Krishnaraja died without a male heir. But, he adopted his grandson to succeed him as Chamaraja X. Chamaraja was the son of Krishnaraja's youngest daughter, Putta Ammanni and Sardar Krishnaraja Urs. Like his grandfather, Chamaraja X was only five when he became king. He too was a patron of art and architecture. Apart from being a violin virtuoso himself, he was a prolific builder commissioning the Lal Bagh Glass House in Bangalore, the Fern Hill Palace in Ooty, and the Oriental Research Institute, the Dufferin Tower and Mysore Zoo.
Chamaraja X had five children; two sons and three daughters. He died of diphtheria, at the early age of just thirty one in 1794. He has ruled for twenty six of those thirty one years. Between Chamaraja X and his grandfather and adoptive father, Krishnaraja III, Mysore had seen close to a century. During this time, the Sikh Empire had been established, risen to power and then been destroyed by the British. The Maratha houses had all been either wiped out, or taken over by the British like Mysore itself. India had fought its First War of Independence, in the north and the east. Political movements had begun to involve the country and the common man and the Indian National Congress had been founded.
Mysore was far from insulated by these events. In 1881, after fifty years of direct rule by the British, Mysore had been handed back to Chamaraja X, and was now one of the princely states of India. In the same year, he had established the representative assembly of Mysore, becoming the first Indian prince to do so. The British had given him the title of Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, and Mysore was a twenty-one gun salute state, one of only five princely states of India in that rarefied status, with Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Baroda and Gwalior.
India and Mysore were now moving to a new age.
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