History of Sulthan Bathery, which Kerala BJP chief wants renamed as Ganapathyvattam

Subject: History

Section: Modern India

Context:

Sulthan Bathery, a municipal town in Wayanad, the Lok Sabha constituency of Rahul Gandhi, is home to a temple that was partly destroyed by Tipu Sultan and used as a store for arms.

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Where does the name Ganapathyvattam come from?

Sulthan Bathery, one of the three municipal towns in Wayanad (the other two are Mananthavady and Kalpetta), has a stone temple that was once known as Ganapathyvattam.
The temple, built in the prevalent architectural style of the Vijayanagar dynasty, was constructed by Jains who migrated to Wayanad from areas in present-day Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the 13th century.
The temple was partly destroyed during the invasions of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in the second half of the 18th century.
Between 1750 and 1790, today’s northern Kerala was invaded several times by the rulers of Mysore, Hyder Ali and his son Tipu.
It remained abandoned for nearly 150 years.
Later, it was taken over by the Archaeological Survey of India, which declared it as a monument of national importance.

Geography of Sultan Bathery:

Sultan Bathery is a town in the mountainous Wayanad region of Kerala, South India.
It takes its name from the ancient Bathery Jain Temple on the edge of town, which was used as an ammunition battery by Tipu Sultan’s army in the 1700s.
In the Ambukuthi Hills to the southwest, Neolithic carvings are preserved on the walls of Edakkal Caves.

What is the history of “Sultan Bathery”?

The armies of Tipu destroyed temples and churches, and forced many in the path of the invasion to flee in order to escape forced religious conversion.
Tipu Sultan used the Maha Ganapathy temple in Sulthan Bathery as a battery or store for weapons for his army in the Malabar region (today’s North Kerala, including Wayanad).
This led to the British recording Ganapathi Vattam as “[Tipu] Sultan’s Battery”, and the name survived as Sulthan Bathery.