The Town of eight hills

It is a town that we come across when we go to Biligiri Ranga Hills (BR Hills) from Bangalore. It was believed to have been first established by the Cholas. Therefore, it was then called Ilamaraduru Nadu in ancient Tamil Scripts.

On their part, the Cholas called it Cholendrasimha Chaturvedi Mangalam. Kannadigas called it Hadhinadu Pranthya.

The town is also part of the smallest taluk in the district in which it is located. It is surrounded by eight hills of which Biligiri is the most famous.

The town boats of a couple of historic and unique temples. There is a temple dedicated to Varaha, one of the Dashavatars of Vishnu.

Varaha is the third avatar of  Vishnu and there is also a shrine of Ganapathi here at its south-west corner. This Ganapathi is growing every year.

The other temple is that of Gaurishvara.It a Vijayanagar style structure constructed around 1550 when Devabhupala or Singadepa was the local ruler. It was subsequently rebuilt during  1654 -1655 by Muddabhupa, grandson of Devabhupala.

The temple has a unique entrance called Bale Mantapa (Bangle entrance) which features some of the most exquisite stone carvings on the walls and pillars. These carvings depict mythological stories of the slaying of the demon Andhakasura, Lord Narasimha  in different postures, Vali, Sugreeva and Krishna.

The carved stone chain rings - 20 cm each- adorn the four corners and the door side of the entrance and this gives it the name of Bale Mantapa. The entrance was built by Muddabhupa or Mudduraja in 1654 (We can see similar stone chains in the temple in Talakadu).

During the Vijayanagar Empire, this town and its surrounding areas were known for its riches. Till Independence, it was the jagir of a former Dewan of the Mysore Kingdom. After 1847, the Imam properties were abolished and taken over by the Government and this town initially came under Mysore district.

A few decades ago, it became part of Chamarajanagar district. Today, it stands at the entrance to the busy BR Hills Road. However, only a handful of the thousands of tourists, wildlife enthusiasts and Nature lovers who throng to BR Hills give a second glance to this town.

Not many realise that they would have missed a date with history by not spending time here. This is the town of Yelandur, which once was the jagir of Dewan Purnaiah. The jagirship continued till 1947 when it was abolished and the place integrated with the rest of the district.

Yelandur is surrounded by eight hills: to the East rises the magnificent Shwetha Giri (Billigri), to the South-East is Mallinatha Giri, to the South is Suragiri, to the South-West Shankareshwara Giri, to the West Mallikarjuna Giri, to the North-West Shambulingana Giri, to the North Srisaila Giri and to North-East Nirmala Giri.

All these hills are accessible from this town which is an oasis of greenery. The town has produced several great personalities such as Narashima Bhatta, the Ayurvedic expert (1790), Sanchi Honnamma (1680) and Vishalaksha Pandit, the Jain Vidwan.        

Yalandur is the smallest taluk in Chamarajanaar district with just 33 villages. It is situated about 60 km south-west of Mysore and about 150 km south of  Bangalore.

In history days, the town was called Ramachndra Yelanbure. Later.  it became Yelandur. Today, it is known as the town surrounded by eight hills. 

The Makaana which is forgotten

This is the Makaana or a clump of wilderness amid sugarcane fields and agricultural lands. It is only a few miles north-east of Mysore and on the Srirangapatna-Mysore Highway.

A canal carrying the Cauvrey water flows nearby and the Varuna canal overhead casts a long shadow. A few decades ago, a cluster of Muslim graves were part of the Makaana. But the graves have been uprooted and only the remnants of a wall and a few pieces of brick and mortar indicate the presence of civilisation.

The wilderness did play and important role in Indian history but as is our wont, we have forgotten it and there are only a handful of people who are aware of its importance. It was at this very spot, and more than two centuries ago, that Arthur Wellesley was defeated in a battle by Dewan Purnaiah in the fourth and final Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.

More importantly, this battle which occurred a few days before the death of Tipu Sultan, gave the shivers to Wellesley. The rockets that the Mysore army of Tipu fired upon the British at this place sent the British scurrying back to safety. Wellesley was wounded and barely escaped capture and death.

Had Wellesley been taken prisoner on that day or had the Mysore forces pressed their advantage and gone after the demoralized British, perhaps the war would not have ended in the defeat and death of Tipu Sultan.

The rocket attack had such a psychological impact in Wellesley that even years after the death of Tipu and even decades after e defeated Napolean Bonaparte, Wellesley confessed to still have nightmares about this place.

Today, a clump of  trees is all that is the remnant of  this epoch event, which has been totally ignored by Indians and downplayed to the extent of being trivalised by the British and other Western authors and sources.

This is the village of Sultanpet, which once was a satellite town on the Srirangapatna-Mysore Highway. The land between Srirangapatna and Sultanpet was full of farms and parts of it was heavily forested.

Tipu  Sultan had stationed a contingent of  rocketmen under Purnaiah at Sultanpet. Since the contingent was well hidden from the prying eyes of the British and their advance party, Wellesley had no knowledge about it.

The British, by then, were advancing towards Srirangapatna from all sides. It was pitch dark of April 5, 1799, when an enthusiastic 30-year old Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Wellesley led the King’s 33rd Regiment of  Foot into a tope or mangrove which also had coconut and betel trees near Sultanpet.

The town of Sultanpet looked deserted and seeing no resistance, Wellesley advanced towards the fields and the clump of forest. That was when the Mysore Army opened rocket fire. The British troops scattered and ran back to their camp, a defeated and dispirited unit. Wellesley lost himself in the forest and the dark night was all the more aggravating for him as he had been shot in his limb-he had been hit by a spent musket-ball in the knee and he went back hobbling with pain and humiliated at his only defeat.

Wellesley had inadvertently led his men into a trap. Some of the rocketeers had worked their way around to the rear of the British encampment and they fired rockets simultaneously to signal the beginning of an assault by 6,000 Indian infantry and a corps of Frenchmen, all directed by Mir Gulam Hussain and Muhammed Hulleen and Mir Mirans.

The rockets had a range of about 1,000 yards. While some burst in the air like shells, others-ground rockets- on striking the ground, rose again and bound along in a serpentine motion until their force was spent.

It was by pure luck and nothing else that Wellesley managed to evade the Mysore Army. He came back to the camp and brooded the whole night over his defeat and also the capture of twelve soldiers who were subsequently by Tipu in Sriurangapatna. The next day, he determined to avenge his humiliation and he marched, all prepared to give a fitting reply. But much of the Army had already withdrawn from the tope of Sultanpet and only a small unit was left behind.

Wellesley had his way and he defeated the unit and marched onwards to Srirangapatna where he joined the other British forces. When Srirangapatna was captured and pillaged on May 4, 1799, Sultanpet too met a similar fate. Almost all the buildings in the village were razed to the ground and only a small wall, part of a mosque and graves were left. Even these buildings were razed to the ground a few years ago.

Neither the graves nor the Cenotaphs that once proclaimed the names of the people who were buried here can be seen today. The meandering canal makes a fairly large circular detour and the wilderness seems like an island surrounded by lush green paddy fields.

The village of Sultanpet exists but its history is gone and the monuments ravaged by the British and then by insensitive Indians. British historians like Beatson and Frances Buchanan and even Macaulay who has written an account of Srirangapatna, Bangalore and Mysore have studiously ignored the Battle of Sultanpet or glossed over it.

The villagers still point to the place they earlier called Makaana. The only relic of the past appears to be the portion of a wall of a large building.

Today, there is no trace of the battlefield though parts of the tope can still be seen. There is not even a caption or sign board by the ASI or any other body identifying the place. Sultanpet today exists only in history books and it has long been forgotten by the lakhs who traverse the busy Bangalore Mysore road everyday.

Tourists and visitors to Srirangapatna and Mysore are given a talking to on the bravery and exploits of Hyder Ali, Tipu and the rather remarkable achievements of the Wodeyars. None of them, however, even have an inkling of the military importance that Sultanpet once had and the deep impact it left permanently on the future Duke of Wellington who later went on defeat Napolean in the European theatre of war.   

As far as the Government and the authorities go, they have given short shrift to a place that the British would never like to remember. Certainly not Wellesley, who woke up at night, having a nightmare of Sultanpet. The nightmare continued till Wellesley died or so says his biographer Forrest. Another biographer, Wellington: The Iron Duke [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)
by Richard Holmes, also alludes to the nightmare and the defeat at Sultanpet. 

When Purnaiah defeated Wellesley

Much is made of the victory of Arthur Wellesley over Tipu Sultan in the fourth and final Anglo-Mysore War.

It is this final battle of Srirangapatna on May 4, 1799 that Tipu lost his life and the British razed Srirangapatna to the ground. The aftermath of the battle came to be felt much later when the British managed to gain complete stranglehold over South India.

However, what many historians and these include Indians as well, seem to forget is that just a month before the decisive battle of Srirangapatna, the British forced had been at the receiving end of Tipu’s famed rockets.

What is more the same British force, which was led by Wellesley was forced to beat what the British historians call a strategic retreat in the face of unrelenting rocket fire. Guess who commanded this Mysore army. It was none other than Dewan Purnaiah, the revenue Minister of Tipu.

Purnaiah was a handful of Hindis who held high positions in the court of Tipu. When war came, Purnaiah was among the first to offer his services to Tipu.

Tipu kept Yaar Mohammad, his trusted commander-in-chief , at Srirangapatna and sent Purnaiah with a contingent of rocketmen and foot soldiers to face the British Army.

The British had taken the Bangalore fort after much difficulty and had marched towards Srirangapatna. The British were assisted by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad.

The British army was led by Col Arthur Wellesley, later first Duke of Wellington. When the British forces reached Sultanpet Tope near Srirangapatna on April 6, 1799, Wellesley decided to press on towards Tipu’s capital.

It was then that the British were given a lesson of their life. The Battle of Sultanpet Tope turned out to be a nightmare for the British.

The British forces were constantly bombarded by rocket fire. The rockets were so effective that one of them injured Wellesley. Though it was a minor injury, it was enough to throw a scare into him.

In a cruel twist of fate for the Mysoreans, Wellesley managed to evade capture at the last moment. Imagine the history of India had Wellesley been captured.

When the British forced failed to gain a critical position, Wellesley was forced to call off the attack. He asked his Army to retreat.

Briitsh historians and unfortunately even Indian historians have glossed over this episode. They have not given Purnaiah his due and also the Army under him for effectively  blocking easy access to Srirangapatna.

In reality, Wellesley was defeated in a battle by Purnaiah, a fact politely acknowledged in diplomatic words by Forrest, a British diarist and military historian who had accompanied Wellesley during the war.

Here is what Forrest has to say about the war of Sultanpet Tope….

“At this point (near the village of Sultanpet, there was a large tope, or grove, which gave shelter to Tipu's rocketmen and had obviously to be cleaned out before the siege could be pressed closer to Srirangapattana island. The commander chosen for this operation was Col. Wellesley, but advancing towards the tope after dark on the 5 April 1799, he was set upon with rockets and musket-fires, lost his way and, as Beatson politely puts it, had to “postpone the attack” until a more favourable opportunity should offer. The following day, Wellesley launched a fresh attack with a larger force, and took the whole position without losing a single man.

On 22 April 1799, twelve days before the final battle, rocketeers worked their way around to the rear of the British encampment, then “threw a great number of rockets at the same instant” to signal the beginning of an assault by 6,000 Indian infantry and a corps of Frenchmen, all directed by Mir Gulam Hussain and Muhammad Hulleen Mir Mirans.

The rockets had a range of about 1,000 yards. Some burst in the air like shells. Others, called ground rockets, would rise again on striking the ground and bound along in a serpentine motion until their force was spent. According to one British observer, a young English officer named Bayly: “So pestered were we with the rocket boys that there was no moving without danger from the destructive missiles ...”.

Bayly further says, “The rockets and musketry from 20,000 of the enemy were incessant. No hail could be thicker. Every illumination of blue lights was accompanied by a shower of rockets, some of which entered the head of the column, passing through to the rear, causing death, wounds, and dreadful lacerations from the long bamboos of twenty or thirty feet, which are invariably attached to them.”

Alas, this did not help Tipu much as he was forced into his fort in Srirangapatna when the British besieged Srirangapatna. As far as Purnaiah is concerned, he has been denied the credit that is due to hi for defeating Wellesley. Of course, he lost the battle the next day. But this seems to have been highlighted and not the previous day’s battle in which he forced Wellesley to retreat. 

Unfortunately, rockets proved to be the undoing of Tipu in his last stand with the British. On May 2, 1799 a British shot struck a magazine of rockets within Tipu Sultan's fort, causing a huge explosion and sending plumes of smoke into the sky.

On the afternoon of May4,  when the final attack on the fort was led by Baird, he was again met by “furious musket and rocket fire.”  Unfortunately, this tactic failed to deter the attackers and in about an hour's time,  the fort was taken and  perhaps within another hour Tipu had been shot.

After the mopping up operations in Srirangapatna,  the British discovered 600 launchers, 700 serviceable rockets and 9,000 empty rockets. Some of them were sent to England where William

Congreve studied and copied them in 1801 to create the Congreve rockets. In 1805, the British demonstrated the Congreve rockets in public but in reality they were only more refined instruments that were once the proud armament of Hyder and Tipu. So much so for British invention or rather manipulation.