Mark Wilks

Colonel Mark Wilks FRS (1759 – 19 September 1831) was a Manx soldier, historian and East India Company administrator who worked in southern India principally in the princely state of Mysore. He was the acting Resident at the Wodeyar Court.

Quotes

• Tipu Sultan sponsored the construction of the Ala Mosque in Seringapatam fort, in which pillars of Hindu origin were clearly visible. According to the Mysore Archaeological Survey, at least three temples in his realm were destroyed on Tipu’s orders. The Hariharesvara temple at Harihar was looted and a section of it converted into a mosque, while the Varahasvami temple in Seringapatam and the Odakaraya temple in Hospet were both destroyed. Colonel Mark Wilks (1759-1831), soldier and historian of the East India Company and acting Resident at the Wodeyar court, observed, “.. in 1799, the two temples within the fort of Seringapatam, alone remained open throughout the extent of his dominions” .
  • (Wilks Vol. IV 1980: 574) quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Episodes from Indian history.338

• Mark Wilks, who participated in the third Anglo-Mysore war, wrote that Tipu would resort to anything to ward off defeat, “The religion which he revered, as well as that which he had cruelly persecuted, were equally invoked; the moola and the bramin were equally bribed to interpose their prayers for his deliverance, his own attendance at the mosque was frequent, and his devotion impressive...” .
  • (Wilks Vol. IV 1980: 735) quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Episodes from Indian history.339

• The country of Calicut is situated on the coast of the ocean, and is named Malabar: its breadth does not exceed twenty-three coss [one coss= 2¼ miles] and its length is nearly two hundred. The Mahommedan inhabitants are called Pilla [Mapilla] and the infidels Naimars; and the rainy season lasts six months, and mud continues throughout the year, the roads are excessively difficult, and the inhabitants prone to resistance, dividing their time between agriculture and arms. Such is the excess of infidelity, that if a Mussulman touch the exterior wall of a house, the dwelling can only be purified by setting it on fire. From the origin of Islam in Hind, to the present day, no person had interfered with these practices, except the revered [Haidar Ali] who is in paradise, after the conquest of the country . . . and during the twenty-five years that the country of Calicut had belonged to this dynasty, in as much as twenty thousand troops were maintained for its occupation, and the revenues never equaled their monthly pay; the balance, to a large amount, was uniformly discharged from the general treasury. Notwithstanding all this, the actual circumstances of the country were never properly investigated, until his Majesty, the shadow of God, directed his propitious steps and remained three months in that country. He observed that the cultivators (instead of being collected in villages as in other parts of India) have each his separate dwelling and garden adjoining his field; these solitary dwellings he classed into groups of forty houses, with a local chief and an accountant to each an establishment which was to watch over the morals and realize the revenue; and a Sheikh-ul-Islam to each district for religious purposes alone; and addressed to the principal inhabitants a proclamation to the following effect: ‘From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused numbers of our warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter, you must proceed in an opposite manner; dwell quietly, and pay your dues like good subjects; and since it is a practice with you, for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the field; I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and live like the rest of mankind. And if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows, to honour the whole of you with Islam, and to march all the chief persons to the seat of empire. Other moral inferences and religious instruction, applicable to spiritual and temporal concerns, were also written with his own hand and graciously bestowed upon them.
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• They finally offered to surrender and were given an option of either a ‘voluntary profession of the Mahommedan faith, or a forcible conversion, with deportation from their native land. The unhappy captives gave a forced assent, and on the next day, the rite of circumcision was performed on all the males, every individual of both sexes being compelled to close the ceremony by eating beef.’
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• He also boasted about ‘the destruction in the course of this holy war of eight thousand idol temples, many of them roofed with gold, silver, or copper, and all containing treasures buried at the feet of the idol, the whole of which was royal plunder.’
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• Thus terminated a dynasty composed only of two Sovereigns, the first of whom had risen from obscurity to imperial power, and the last, educated as a prince had fallen in the defence of a hereditary crown; resembling in some of the circumstances of its close, the fate of the Roman capital of the Eastern empire; substituting like that catastrophe, in place of the fallen dynasty, not only the power of a new Sovereign, but the influence of a new race; yet exhibiting the marked contrast, of kindling, not quenching in its fall, the lights of science and civilization.
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• In person, he [Tipu] was neither so tall nor so robust as his father, and had a short pursy neck; the large limbs, small eyes, aquiline nose, and fair complexion of Hyder, marked the Arabic character derived from his mother. Tippoo’s singularly small and delicate hands and feet, his large and full eyes, a nose, less prominent, and a much darker complexion were all national characteristics of the Indian form. There was in the first view of his countenance, an appearance of dignity which wore off on farther observation; and his subjects did not feel that it inspired the terror or respect, which in common with his father, he desired to command. Hyder’s lapse from dignity into low and vulgar scolding, was among the few points of imitation or resemblance, but in one it inspired fear, in the other ridicule. In most instances exhibiting a contrast to the character and manners of his father, he spoke in a loud and unharmonious tone of voice; he was extremely garrulous, and on superficial subjects, delivered his sentiments with plausibility. In exterior appearance, he affected the soldier; in his toilet, the distinctive habits of the Mussulman; he thought hardiness to be indicated by a plain unincumbered attire, which he equally exacted from those around him, and the long robe and trailing drawers were banished from his court . . . of the vernacular languages, he spoke no other than Hindostanee and Canarese; but from a smattering in Persian literature, he considered himself as the first philosopher of the age. He spoke that language with fluency; but although the pen was forever in his hand, he never attained either elegance or accuracy of style. The leading features of his character were vanity and arrogance; no human being was ever so handsome, so wise, so learned, or so brave as himself. Resting on the shallow instructions of his scanty reading, he neglected the practical study of mankind. No man had ever less penetration into character; and accordingly, no prince was ever so ill served; the army alone remained faithful, in spite of all his efforts for the subversion of discipline and allegiance. Hyder delegated to his instruments a large portion of his own power, as the best means of its preservation. Tippoo seemed to feel every exercise of delegated authority as an [sic] usurpation of his own . . . from constitutional or incidental causes, he was less addicted than his father to the pleasures of the harem, which, however, contained at his death about one hundred persons . . . he could neither be truly characterized as liberal or parsimonious; as tyrannical or benevolent; as a man of talents, or as destitute of parts. By turns, he assumed the character of each. In one object alone he appeared to be consistent, having perpetually on his tongue the projects of jehad—holy war. The most intelligent and sincere well-wishers of the house concurred in the opinion of his father, that his heart and head were both defective, however covered by a plausible and imposing flow of words; and they were not always without suspicions of mental aberration . . . Tippoo was intoxicated with success, and desponding in adversity. His mental energy failed with the decline of fortune; but it were unjust to question his physical courage. He fell in the defence of his capital; but he fell, performing the duties of a common soldier, not of a general.
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• This is nearly the form of the jebbum [Japam] which is always performed during a drought in Mysoor, for procuring rain. That Hyder, himself, half a Hindoo, should sanction these ceremonies, is in the ordinary course of human action; but that Tippoo, the most bigoted of Mahommedans, professing an open abhorrence and contempt for the Hindoo religion, and the bramins its teachers, destroying their temples, and polluting their sanctuaries, should never fail to enjoin the performance of the jebbum when alarmed by imminent danger, is, indeed, an extraordinary combination of arrogant bigotry and trembling superstition; of general intolerance mingled with occasional respect for the object of persecution.
  • in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)