Reference
Glossary
The history of Mysore is written in Persian, Kannada and administrative shorthand. Here is what the words mean, with a link to where each one does its work.
Mysore's own vocabulary
Terms as they are used across this site. Where a word has more than one common spelling, the variant is noted.
- Amildar
- The officer administering a taluk, responsible above all for assessing and collecting the land revenue. Salaried, and therefore transferable and auditable. →
- Asofalso asaf
- Governor of a province (asofi). Mysore was divided into 37 of them. →
- Bubri
- The tiger stripe Tipu Sultan adopted as his emblem, applied to uniforms, cannon, coins, the throne and the walls of his palaces. →
- Cushoon
- A brigade of the Mysore infantry, commanded by a sipahdar, normally of four risalas plus 200 rocketmen. The army fielded sixteen to twenty-four. →
- Durbar
- The ruler's court, and the formal audience held in it. →
- Fanam
- A small gold coin. Under Tipu Sultan the denominations were renamed after saints, caliphs and — for copper — stars. →
- Fathul Mujahidin
- The military code composed in Persian in 1783 by Zainul Abedin Shustari at Tipu Sultan's direction and issued to every officer: establishments, ranks, pay, drill and rocket doctrine. →
- Faujdar
- The officer responsible for law and order in a district — deliberately kept separate from the revenue officer so that no one held both the money and the soldiers. →
- Gumbaz
- The domed mausoleum at Srirangapatna that Tipu Sultan built for his parents, and where the British buried him beside them on 5 May 1799. →
- Jagir
- An assignment of a village or district's revenue to a noble in place of salary — an intermediary Tipu Sultan stopped creating, paying his officers in cash instead. →
- Jouq
- A company: the basic tactical unit of 121 men, specified in the military code down to scouts, water carriers and barbers. →
- Kandachara
- Militia, often settled on grants of land — a significant part of the agrarian order of the reign. →
- Khilat
- A robe of honour bestowed by a sovereign. The Ottoman caliph sent them to Tipu Sultan's ambassadors along with recognition. →
- Khutba
- The Friday sermon, in which the sovereign's name is pronounced. The right to have it read in his own name was one of the things Tipu Sultan sought from the caliph, and got. →
- Kothi
- A state trading house. Mysore ran some thirty of them, at home and overseas at Muscat and in the Gulf. →
- Mauludi
- The era Tipu Sultan introduced, counted from the birth of the Prophet rather than the Hijra, and used to date his coins and documents. →
- Math
- A Hindu monastic institution. The Sringeri math was sacked by Maratha cavalry in 1791; Tipu Sultan funded its restoration. →
- Naik
- A petty commander of foot soldiers — the rank Haidar Ali's father held, and the bottom of the family's climb. →
- Pettah
- The walled town beside a fort, as at Bangalore, where the assault on the Pettah gate cost Colonel Moorhouse his life in 1791. →
- Poligaralso palegar
- A hereditary warrior chief holding land and armed followers in exchange for tribute. Tipu Sultan suppressed them, and some welcomed the British in 1799. →
- Pukhaly
- A water carrier — an appointment specified by name in the establishment of every company. →
- Risala
- A regiment; four normally made up a cushoon. →
- Ryot
- The cultivator. Tipu Sultan's revenue policy aimed at dealing with him directly rather than through intermediaries. →
- Sarkar-i-Khudadad
- “The God-given government” — Tipu Sultan's name for his state, a claim that it answered to God and the sultan rather than to any hereditary order. →
- Sarvadhikari
- Chief minister; the office through which Haidar Ali took control of Mysore in 1761 while the Wodeyar raja kept the throne. →
- Shanbhog
- The village accountant, who kept the records the amildar was required to verify. →
- Sipahdar
- The commander of a cushoon, roughly a brigadier-general. →
- Taccavi
- Agricultural loans advanced by the state — not only cash but cattle and grain, the actual inputs needed to work land. →
- Taluk
- A sub-division of a province, administered by an amildar. Mysore had 124. →
- Taramandalpet
- “Star-cluster quarter” — a rocket manufactory. Four are recorded: Srirangapatna, Bangalore, Chitradurga and Bidanur. Bangalore's survives as a place name. →
- Yusaqchi
- Scouts and couriers, an appointment in every company establishment. →
- Zamindar
- A holder of hereditary rights of revenue collection in Mughal and successor practice — the system Mysore was breaking with. →
Terms from the comparison
Words belonging to other states, used on this site when Mysore is set beside its contemporaries.
- Ferme générale
- The syndicate of financiers that farmed France's indirect taxes on six-year contracts until 1790 — the practice Tipu Sultan was abolishing in Mysore at the same moment. →
- Malikane
- The Ottoman tax farm held for life and heritable by a holder's sons, created by a decree of 1695 — revenue collection converted into private property. →
- Tuyul
- The Iranian assignment of land and its revenue to soldiers and notables, to which Iran reverted after Nader Shah's death. →
- Venality of office
- The French practice of selling government posts as heritable property, which made officials hard to dismiss or audit. →