Quotes from William Dalrymple

For the arrow of fate cannot be parried by the shield of effort once God's decree has already passed another way.

to stop squabbling and cooperate with each other. But both men did agree that this was the right moment to revive Maratha power in Hindustan, and that the best way of cementing this would be to install Shah Alam back in Delhi under their joint protection, and so secure control of his affairs.21 The master of Delhi, they knew, was always the master of Hindustan.

I came alone and I go as a stranger. The instant which has passed in power has left only sorrow behind it. I have not been the guardian and protector of the Empire. Life, so valuable, has been squandered in vain. God was in my heart but I could not see him. Life is transient. The past is gone and there is no hope for the future. The whole imperial army is like me: bewildered, perturbed, separated from God, quaking like quicksilver.

Crossing the Black Water

Your entitlement is to the deed alone, never to its results. Do not make the results of an action your motive. Do not be attached to inaction. Having renounced rewards resulting from actions, wise men endowed with discrimination are freed from the bondage of birth and go to the Regions of Eternal Happiness.'89

Siraj's most serious error was to alienate the great bankers of Bengal, the Jagat Seths. The Seths' machinations had brought Aliverdi to power, and anyone who wanted to operate in the region did well to cultivate their favour; but Siraj did the opposite to the two men of the family

It was in such an enfeebled state of the Empire, that there arose a new sort of men, who so far from setting up patterns of piety and virtue, squandered away the lives and properties of the poor with so much barefacedness, that other men, on beholding their conduct, became bolder and bolder, and practised the worst and ugliest action, without fear or remorse. From those men sprung an infinity of evil-doers, who plague the Indian world, and grind the faces of its wretched inhabitants …

At its purest, Jainism is almost an atheistic religion, and the much venerated images of the Tirthankaras in temples represent not so much a divine presence as a profound divine absence. I

who had surrendered and thrown themselves at the mercy of the Afghans, were to a man executed on Durrani's orders. The Peshwa Ballaji Rao died broken-hearted soon after: 'his mind

In the end, the Company sued for peace. Haidar was successfully bought off: a treaty was signed and the Mysore forces returned home. But the fact that the Company could

On his deathbed, Haidar had written to Tipu with advice to his son on the art of good government. He warned him that the Company would attempt to exploit any weakness in the succession: 'The greatest obstacle you have to conquer is the jealousy of the Europeans,' he wrote. 'The English are today all-powerful in India. It is necessary to weaken them by war.

envoys to southern China to bring back silkworm eggs and established sericulture in Mysore, something that still enriches the region today. He introduced irrigation and built dams so that even his British enemies had to admit that his kingdom was 'well cultivated, populous with industrious inhabitants, cities [including Bangalore] newly founded and commerce extended'.

Tipu even asked his ambassadors to Ottoman Istanbul to secure for him the ijara – farm – of Basra so that, like the Europeans, he could establish an overseas settlement which would be a base for his vessels.

After several months of dwindling fortunes, and deserting troops, the final defeat of the Emperor's army took place at the Battle of Helsa, near Bodhgaya, the site of the Buddha's Enlightenment, on 15 January 1761. Here the imperial army was finally cornered by several battalions of red-coated sepoys.

Four years later, in December 1797, Tipu despatched an embassy seeking Napoleon's help against the Company. What the Sultan of Mysore did not know was that the army he needed was already being prepared in Toulon. By the time Tipu's embassy arrived in Paris, in April 1798, Napoleon was waiting for an opportunity to sail his 194 ships, carrying 19,000 of his best men, out of Toulon, and across the Mediterranean to Egypt. Napoleon was quite clear as to his plans.

On 2 July 1761, Miran, the 'abominable', murderous, debauchee son of Mir Jafar, was killed – allegedly by a chance sudden strike of lightning while returning from the campaign against Shah Alam. According to John Caillaud, who was present in the camp, 'the young nabob, was lying asleep in his tent at midnight.

It is recorded that Tipu made all his troops, Hindu and Muslim, take ritual baths in holy rivers 'by the advice of his [Brahmin] augurs' in order to wash away cowardice and make them superior in battle to the Marathas. Tipu also strongly believed in the supernatural powers of holy men, both Hindu and Muslim. As he wrote in 1793 to the Swami of Sringeri: 'You are the Jagatguru

Wealth is not the only, nor the most valuable commodity, which Britain might import from India.80

Few, few shall part where many meet, The snow shall be their winding sheet; And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

Empire that was so magnificently strong, so confident in its own strength and brilliance and

Whatever the accurate figures, the event generated howls of righteous indignation for several generations among the British in India and 150 years later was still being taught in British schools as demonstrative of the essential barbarity of Indians and illustrative of why British rule was supposedly both necessary and justified.

In many ways the East India Company was a model of commercial efficiency: one hundred years into its history, it had only thirty-five permanent employees in its head office. Nevertheless, that skeleton staff executed a corporate coup unparalleled in history: the military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia.

The barracks should of course have been torn down years ago, but the Fort's current proprietors, the Archaeological Survey of India, have lovingly continued the work of decay initiated by the British: white marble pavilions have been allowed to discolour; plasterwork has been left to collapse; the water channels have cracked and grassed over; the fountains are dry. Only the barracks look well maintained.

There is no fear of robbers nor highwaymen, no one challenges you where you are going nor where you have come from;