Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 141

May, 1923]
BOOK NOTICES
125
Chhattisgarhi as the definite dialect of about hope that “worthy biographies" of himself and four and a half millions of people is quite modern, his father will yet be produced. As Mr. Hender. having arisen in the 17th century A.D. "The son remarks, there must be unworked sources of oldest and only inscriptional record" on stone information still available in Mysore, and I may is at Dantewara in the Bastar State, dated 1703 ; add elsewhere, among relics " looted" and brought but in the 17th century Prahlad Dabe of Sarangash to England from the fall of Seringapatam. Mr. wrote an historical poem, the Jayachandrika, Henderson quotes from Meadows Taylor, who, containing, among other dialectic terms, words in his Tippoo Sultaun (fiction) puts the following in pure Chhattisgarhf. Of late, however, there
description of him into the mouth of one of his has been a move to create a literature for the dialect. and hence no doubt the call for a Grammar. That
characters (p. x) :it has been well set forth in the present work is
"He was a great man-such an one as Hind guaranteed by the names on the titlo page.
will never see again. He had great ambition. R. C. TEMPLE.
wonderful ability, perseverance, and the art of
leading men's hearts more than they were aware SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF VIJAYANAGAR, by
of, or cared to acknowledge ; he had patient apGURTY VENKAT RAO, M.A. Oxford University plication, and nothing was done without his sancPress: Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, 1922. Re.
tion, even to the meanest affairs, and the business printed from the Journal of Indian History.
of his dominions was vast. You will allow he February 1922.
was brave, and died like a soldier. He was kind This little pamphlet of 18 pp. contains the roeult
and considerato to his servants, and a steady of very wide reading and is a credit to its author
friend to those ho loved. Mashalla ! he was a and to the Allahabad University, of which he is
. great man." Meadows Taylor, T'ippoo Sultaus,
p. 450. & research scholar in the Historical Department.
It we add that he was austere, simple and abThe results of an examination of a great number of
stemious in his private life, we have here a view of papers, pamphlets and books are set down in a
him that is supported by more recent research. lucid and admirably brief manner, and the authority
Haidar 'Ali and his son show in their coins the for every statement is carefully given. It is ex
different circumstances in which they lived, giving actly what the title says it is: a reliablo guide to
once more an illustration of how coine do reflect the Sources of Vijayanagar history--the history of
history. Haidar 'Ali, the military adventurer, an Empire of which every South Indian Hindu
had to be very careful to alter as little as possiblo must be proud, for it kept back the tide of Muham.
the coinage already current in the dominions he madan aggression for 200 years and finally, through
carved out for himself in Hindu Mysore and neighits heirs, prevented it from overwhelming the South.
bourhood, in order to preserve their currency This little book will be of value to every student, intact, and so the Muhammadan usurper of a and is a worthy companion to Professor Krishna
mirister-ridden kingdom imitated the local Hindu swami Aiyangar's work on the same subject. coins, acting merely the initial of his name
R. C. TEMPLE.
JA (tiger), and only doubtfully got as far as a THE COINS OF HAIDAR ALI AND TIPU SULTAN, by
full Persian inscription in his later years. J. R. HENDERSON, C.I.E., formerly Superin- The real interest in this collection of coins lice tendent, Madras Government Museum, Madras in those of Tipu Sultan-the strongly established Government Press, 1921.
Muhammadan ruler, the lover of change, unable This valuable numismatio monograph is much to hide his masterful pride of powerlue from more than mere description of the coins struck twelve Hindu mint towns, to which he gave fanci. by these two important monarchs, representing ful new-fangled Persianised names. These mint the interesting mixed Arabo-Indian race of the towns, by the way, once more show the propriety Navậyats, whose charactors have come down in of testing the spread of a conqueror's power by English historical accounts in an unfortunately the geographical extension of his mints. He soon garbled form, as they were enemies to be fought founded a new era, the Maladi, which was in effoct under circumstances most serious to the nascent the existing Hindu Sixty Year Cycle with Arabio power of the East India Company. It is unwise names substituted for the old Hindu names, to to accept unhesitatingly the character of any bygone the great puzzlement of writers on the subject, king from the estimates of contemporary enemies. 88 Mr. Henderson explains. Incidentally, the R.., Tipu was anything but a monster of iniquity change greatly puzzled the die-sinkers and led to in real life, and I heartly ondorse Mr. Henderson's many errors on the coins themselves.
• Thero is an account of Tipu in the Journal of the Mythic Society, Bangalore, vol. X., No. 1, pp. 12- (Oot. 1919).