Did Vijay Mallya’s Tipu sword just sell for Rs 143 crore?

When Tipu Sultan’s capital Srirangapatnam fell on May 4, 1799, the invading forces of the East India Company seized, among other things, one of his ceremonial swords. It was presented to Major General David Baird, who had commanded the successful final charge that breached Srirangapatnam’s walls. The bestowal was especially significant because Baird had been Tipu’s prisoner for three years and was ill-treated in his dungeon.

For the next 204 years the sword remained in the Baird family until they gave it up for sale to the auction house Dix Noonan Webb (now Noonans) in 2003. It soon made headlines in India because liquor baron Vijay Mallya bought it in September that year.

Mallya’s sword auctioned again?
On May 23 this year, another UK-based auction house, Bonhams, sold the ‘Bedchamber Sword of Tipu Sultan’ to an unnamed buyer for the equivalent of Rs 143 crore (£14 million) in London. On its website, Bonhams says: “The sword was presented to Major General David Baird, by the army ‘as a token of their high esteem of his courage and conduct in the assault which he commanded and in which Tippoo Sultaun was slain’. ” This is also the English inscription on the sword.

Bonhams does not say how it got hold of the sword. Nor does it mention the 2003 auction at Noonans. Does it mean there are two different Tipu swords? But since the sword has been traced to David Baird in both instances, this possibility would arise only if Baird had been presented with two of Tipu’s swords after the fall of Srirangaptnam.
A recent report in the UK-based media outlet, The Art Newspaper, however, suggests the Noonans and Bonhams swords are the same. It says the ‘Bedchamber Sword’ “remained in Baird’s family until 2003, when it was auctioned at Dix Noonan Webb in London for £150,000”.


Public historian Nidhin Olikara is convinced that the sword auctioned byBonhams last Tuesday is Mallya’s sword. “Newspaper reports of that time attested to Mallya acquiring a sword of Tipu presented to David Baird, matching all features of the bedchamber sword, including the type of the blade as well as the invocations on the hilt and the parasol mark on the blade,” he says. Olikara’s work on Mysore under Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan has been published by the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Details of both swords match
Although Mallya bought his Tipu sword on September 19, 2003, he didn’t display it in Bengaluru until April 7, 2004. Perhaps, he was hoping to make politicalcapital out of the event as he was the national working president of Janata Party at the time, and the Karnataka assembly elections were days away. He had already given the sword’s purchase a nationalistic spin – a son of India had brought back the stolen treasure of another great son of India.

On April 8, 2004, TOI wrote about the sword’s link with David Baird. It said the words ‘shamshir-i malik’ or ‘the king’s sword’ were inscribed on the sword; it had a calligraphic hilt and was 36 inches long unsheathed. The sword had a disc-shaped pommel with a gold loop, and its hilt “canted slightly forward”.

A description of the Tipu/Mallya sword on the Noonans sitesays it had the words ‘O! Patron, O! Victor, O! Defender, O! Helper and O! Supporter’ inscribed on its hilt. The Arabic calligraphy of the sword sold on May 23 by Bonhams also reads: ‘Ya Nasiru! Ya Fattahu! Ya Nasiru! Ya Mu’inu! Ya Zaheer! Ya Allahu!’. It’s the same inscription!
Also, the Noonans catalogue published at the time of the 2003 auction contains images of the sword that are identical to the sword sold by Bonhams.

Wasn’t Mallya’s sword lost?
In 2018, some Indian news outlets reported that Mallya had given away the sword as it brought him bad luck, and that it was missing. That was Mallya’s version. After this fresh sale, there is speculation in art circles that Bonhams may have got the sword from Vijay Mallya himself. Bonhams has thus far maintained a discreet stance regarding the identity of the sword’s buyer, and did not respond to an email query regarding the sword’s potential connection to Vijay Mallya. The writer is a Killam Doctoral Scholar in History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Why is the sword special?
The Noonans catalogue says this single-edge straight sword is of great importance because calligraphic hilts were “amongst the rarest type of hilt from the Indian subcontinent” and they involved extremely high standards of manufacturing detail. The hilt is decorated in the koftgari style by inlaying gold with steel.

Did Tipu use it in battle?
No, it was a ceremonial/state sword. Tipu was not carrying it while defending the breach of his capital. It was found hanging in his bedchamber by East India Company troops ransacking his palace after his death.

Where was it made?
Tipu’s ‘Bedchamber Sword’ “is probably of Mughal manufacture”. Its blade was made in the style of 16th-century German blades that were imported into India.

Are its inscriptions a call to jihad?
No, none of the sword’s inscriptions is a call to wage jihad and murder Hindus. The meaning of only one Farsi inscription on the spine is in doubt. It could be either shamshir-i malik (sword of the king) or shamshir-i mulk (sword of the realm).

What do the orb and parasol signify?
High-quality German blades of the 16th century came with an orb mark. Mughal sword makers not only copied this mark but also added a golden Mughal imperial parasol to it, to signify the highest quality of blade meant for the emperor.

Bairds did not forget Tipu

After the fall of Srirangapatnam in May 1799, Colonel Arthur Wellesley presented Tipu’s ‘Bedchamber Sword’ to Major General David Baird, who had commanded the ?nal charge that breached the city’s walls. As this was a breach of protocol (Wellesley was Baird’s subordinate), Lieutenant General Harris re-presented the sword to Baird.

In time, Wellesley became more famous than both Harris and Baird. As the future Duke of Wellington, he proved Napoleon’s nemesis at Waterloo. The sword remained with the Baird family until 2003 when they gave it up for auction. But even today their family’s coat of arms has a Mysore tiger (Tipu’s) on it.