Description : Mysore, officially Mysuru, is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. It served as the capital city of the Kingdom of Mysore for nearly six centuries from 1399 until 1956. The Kingdom was ruled by the Wadiyar dynasty, with a brief period of interregnum in the late 18th century when Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan were in power. The Wadiyars were patrons of art and culture. Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali also contributed significantly to the cultural and economic growth of the city and the state by planting mulberry trees introducing silk in the region and fighting 4 Anglo-Mysore wars against the British. The cultural ambience and achievements of Mysore earned it the sobriquet Cultural Capital of Karnataka. The site where Mysore Palace now stands was occupied by a village named Puragere at the beginning of the 16th century.:281 The Mahishūru Fort was constructed in 1524 by Chamaraja Wodeyar III (1513–1553),:257 who passed on the dominion of Puragere to his son Chamaraja Wodeyar IV (1572–1576). Since the 16th century, the name of Mahishūru has commonly been used to denote the city.:31 The Kingdom of Mysore, governed by the Wodeyar family, initially served as a vassal state of the Vijayanagara Empire. With the decline of the Vijayanagara Empire after the Battle of Talikota in 1565, the Mysore Kingdom gradually achieved independence, and by the time of King Narasaraja Wodeyar (1637) it had become a sovereign state.:228 Seringapatam, near Mysore, the present-day Srirangapatna, was the capital of the kingdom from 1610.:257 The 17th century saw a steady expansion of its territory and, under Narasaraja Wodeyar I and Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar, the kingdom annexed large areas of what is now southern Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu, to become a powerful state in the southern Deccan. The kingdom reached the height of its military power and dominion in the latter half of the 18th century, under the de facto rulers Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. The latter demolished parts of Mysore to remove legacies of the Wodeyar dynasty.:257 During this time, the kingdom of Mysore came into conflict with the Marathas, the British, and the Nizam of Hyderabad, leading to the four Anglo-Mysore wars, success in the first two of which was followed by defeat in the third and fourth. After Tipu Sultan's death in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, the capital of the kingdom was moved back to Mysore from Seringapatam,:249 and the kingdom was distributed by the British to their allies of the Fourth Mysore war. Part of the kingdom was annexed into the Madras Presidency, another part was awarded to the Nizam of Hyderabad. The landlocked interior of the defeated kingdom of Mysore was turned into a princely state under the suzerainty of the British Crown,:249 with the five-year-old Wodeyar Krishnaraja III as titular ruler and with Purnaiah, who had served under Tipu, as chief minister or Diwan and Lt. Col. Barry Close as Resident. The British took control of Mysore's foreign policy and insisted on an annual tribute for maintaining a standing British army at Mysore. Purnaiah is credited with improving Mysore's public works. In 1831, claiming there was maladministration, the British took direct control of the princely state. For the next fifty years, the kingdom of Mysore was under the direct rule of British Commissioners, and in 1831 the city of Mysore lost its status as the administrative centre, when the British Commissioner moved the capital to Bangalore.:251
See on map »