A Kannada translation of one of Tipu Sultan’s regulation instructions relating to the accounts and land grants of a Hindu monastery.

Tipu Sultan, the late 18th century ruler of Mysore, personally oversaw the various commercial and administrative departments of his state and composed official manuals called hukmnamas outlining the regulations his court officials should follow. Even during Tipu’s lifetime, George III owned an English translation of one of his hukmnama texts, procured by an Englishman during the 3rd Anglo-Mysore war, which was published in 1792 as ‘Mysorean Revenue Regulations’, and which the King had bound in red leather and gold-stamped with his royal cipher (BL 148.b.10.)

This volume is written on high-quality gold-flecked paper with a frontispiece illuminated in a traditionally Islamic style but in a distinctly southern Indian idiom. The calligraphy, in telugu script (read left to right), reflects the hybrid nature of Tipu’s court since it is written with a slight slant, presumably by someone more accustomed to writing in Persian.

Stylistically, this manuscript forms a pair with another Kannada volume in the Royal Collection (RCIN 1005093). They are both written on the same size and type of high quality gold flecked paper. It is possible that they are two surviving volumes from a much larger set of texts in Kannada written at the court of Mysore.

Both volumes were rebound in the early nineteenth century in European red velvet covers with neoclassical-style gold tooling.