''Tipu Sultan Kanda Kanasu'' (English: ''The Dreams of Tipu Sultan'') is a 1997

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

play written by

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the ...

. The play has been performed many times by different groups around the world but mostly in India and Pakistan. The story follows the last days as well as the historic moments in the life of the Ruler of

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (born Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery.Dalrymple, p. 243 He i ...

, (1750–1799) through the eyes of an Indian court historian and a British Oriental scholar. Girish Karnad's play is based on a

Farsi Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken an ...

manuscript written by Tipu Sultan in his own handwriting preserved in the India Office Library. It was later translated and published as ''The Dreams of Tipu Sultan''. In this text, Tipu Sultan recorded some of his dreams from 1785 to 1798. Several of the dreams are about defeating the unbelievers, the Marathas and the Nazarenes (i.e, the English), and visions of the Prophet, the companions of the Prophet and Islamic sages. Girish Karnad's play uses four of the 37 dreams for his play: Dream 9, Dream 10, Dream 13 and fourth one as having victory over the British. Mir Hussain Ali Khan Kirmani (active 1781-1802), who wrote "History of Tipu Sultan: Being a Continuation of The Neshani Hyduri" (an English Translation appeared in 1864), is also a character in Girish Karnad's play. The Jordanian scholars Khawaldeh and Neimneh conclude in an article that "what Karnad wishes to achieve, through this counter-historical theatrical project, is to dismantle the image of the ruthless and unprincipled 'Other' propagated by British historians, dramatists, and performers by creating or even recreating an alternative humane and noble character of Tipu Sultan."

Translations

* ''Collected Plays: Taledanda, the Fire and the Rain, the Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Flowers and Images: Two Dramatic Monologues: Flowers : Broken Images, Vol. 2''. Oxford University Press, USA. 2005.

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''The Dreams of Tipu Sultan''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dreams Of Tipu Sultan Indian plays Kannada literature Plays set in the 18th century Plays based on actual events History of Mysore History of India in fiction Plays set in India Plays based on real people Cultural depictions of male monarchs Cultural depictions of Indian men 1997 plays

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