Dariya Daulat Bagh

The town of Srirangapatnam is located on an island on the river Cauvery. A few kilometres to its east, lies Dariya Daulat Bagh also known as the "Summer Palace" of Tipu Sultan.

Begun in 1778 AD by Tipu's father Haider Ali, the Dariya Daulat Bagh was completed by in 1784 AD. In a life marked with war and strife, this place on the Cauvery's southern bank was Tipu's favourite retreat. Built like a pavilion, the  palace sits on the Northern side of a large garden. The palace is said to be been used by Tipu in the summers. What we see today is the result of aesthetic cleansing of the Bagh on the lines of European tastes and carries a Colonial hangover.

Noted for its graceful proportions, arabesque work and wall paintings, the Dariya Daulat Bagh is referred to as "Garden of the wealth of the Sea".  The siting of the Bagh on the Cauvery holds clues to the real meaning behind its name. With the Cauvery being a spring-fed river unlike other monsoon-fed rivers of the Deccan along with its penchant to flow along the course of forest tracts, this seems very likely  influence on the siting of the garden. The term Dariya is a persian word by origin, meaning River (i.e. names of river Amu Darya, Syr Darya). Hence Dariya Daulat Bagh is really Garden of the Wealth of the (big) River.

The original form of the garden seems to have been left largely unaltered till date. However notable changes to the garden can be sensed as a result of factors such as war damage and aesthetic preferences of the British. In Tipu's time, the West side of the summer palace would have had a visual link with the city wall and its East gate (Bangalore gate) . This hypothesis can be examined for validity on the basis of one small detail on one of the murals, which shows the view of the Dasera procession being seen from a building which resembles the summer palace. A cursory examination of Aerial imagery hints as this possibility.

The Bagh, subsequent to the War of Srirangapatman (1799) was occupied by the Duke of Wellington (then) Col. Wellesley, followed by Lord Dalhousie, almost 50 years later. Like other gardens in india, the British would have altered the layout of the Bagh to suit their aesthetic preferences. The large swathes of lawn in the immediate vicinity of the palace seems an outcome of this. While orchards along the southern part of the bagh give a hint of the likely composition of the garden, its is possible that both Tipu and the British introduced exotic species into the garden. Remnant mango trees indicate that large parts of the bagh may have been a mango orchard.

The star-shapes in the grass parterre bordering the main axis walkways and the remnant water channel indicate a water axis with fountains which may have been a scaled down version of same feature as seen at the Taj Mahal. The water axis seems to end abruptly with the first basin. This implies the possibilities of the subsequent patches to be a sunken grassed parterre, or a water parterre. Likewise, the elliptical swathe of grass and hedge seen at the entrance gate suggests the possibility of a water basin instead as a terminus to the axis, in keeping with the water-axis theme. Another possibility is that of a raised flower bed with a colourful arrangement of flowers, as was the taste of the age, and given Tipu's horticultural leanings. It is also evident that the immediate ground levels around all these zones have been a subject of intervention over the centuries. Hence kerblines, walkway levels, intersections and water channels with spouts are some of the evidently eroded garden details of Tipu's age. 

Along its peripheries the Bagh has been subjected to many changes. The edge of the Bagh along the Cauvery has overgrown and is rarely approached by visitors. This point of contact between inhabited space and a river has always been interestingly articulated in Hindu and Islamic traditions of design. It would be interesting to visualise the riverside during Tipu's time. Another potential investigation is the axial orientation of the gate of the Bagh towards the south edge of the river as documented in historical maps of Srirangapatna. While a small pavilion marks this terminus, any trace of the axis has disappeared for good. 

 The present day main gate is well set-within in relation to the approach road. Historic maps show an axial alignment of road between the edge of the Fort  and the settlement of Ganjam or Ganj-i-Aam. Ganj-I Aam is known as the settlement of workers and soldiers who were re-located here from Sira, near Tumkur. In an agrarian economy,moving from the mainland on to an island with limited terrain for cultivation, works against the logic of being able to culture and cultivate land. Even stranger is the possibility that such a settlement would be named as  "Neighbourhood of commoners" (Ganj- neighbourhood, Aam- Common). Names ike Paharganj and Daryaganj in Delhi have a landscape-based etymology, which is also a likelihood in the case of Ganjam. 

Given Tipu and his father Haidar Ali's trysts with horticulture, Ganjam is more plausibly "Neighbourhod of Mango (Orchards)" (Aam- mango). This is further reinforced by historic references to the Mughal-styled garden at Sira, built by Dilawar Khan, with which Hyder Ali was very familiar. It is therefore only likely that a colony of gardens, horticultural experts were shifted from Sira to Srirangaptna...to create or tend to a mango orchard, along with the Darya Daulat and the Lal Bagh. 

That, then perhaps also explains why Tipu would build a garden just a mile outside his fort, and away from a much larger garden- the original Lalbagh, behind Ganjam. It is here that we can speculate about the Dariya Daulat Bagh's form and layers in Tipu's time. 

While the Bagh's spatial organization, its siting, name and Tipu's religious bent of mind carry clear references to the Islamic garden,  the presence of sunken parterres and Tipu's own familiarity with the French, also hints at French Garden design influences finding its way into the Bagh. 

So then, what was Tipu's garden really like, in his time?