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Later Mughals v2.c18.s7: Sec. 113.—Defeat and Casualties of the Indians.

Later Mughals v2.c18.s7

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Sec. 113.—Defeat and Casualties of the Indians.

v2.c18.s7.1

Saadat Khan had been suffering for the last three months from a wound in the leg which prevented him from riding or walking, and he used to be carried about in a chair or on an elephant. Though he had received two wounds in this battle, he could have retired in safety but for an accident. His elephant was charged by the infuriated elephant of his nephew Nisar Muhammad Khan Sher Jang and driven into the Persian ranks, though his men stabbed it with sword and dagger to make it stop. Surrounded by enemies, Saadat Khan continued to shoot arrows from his seat, to resist capture, when a young Persian soldier of his native city of Naishabur boldly galloped up to his elephant, and addressing him by his familiar name, cried out, “Muhammad Amin! Are you mad? Whom are you fighting? On whom are you still relying?” Then driving his spear into the ground, and throwing the reins of his horse round it, he climbed up to Saadat Khan’s howda by the rope hanging down from it. The Khan now surrendered and was taken to Nadir’s camp. [Siyar, i. 97.]

v2.c18.s7.2

At the disappearance of these two leaders, the Indian army melted away, pursued by the Persian horsemen with heavy slaughter. The Emperor with his other nobles stood in battle order by the side of the canal (in the extreme west of the field) expecting an attack. But Nadir Shah kept his men back from assaulting such a strongly fortified position and its heavy artillery; he had a surer and easier means of compelling the Emperor’s submission. At sunset, Muhammad Shah retired to his camp, after having all that day done absolutely nothing to save his throne and his people.* The battle was over in less than three hours : it had commenced at the time of the zuhar prayer and ended at the asar prayer. [*Jahankusha* 351.]

v2.c18.s7.3

The slaughter in the Indian army was terrible. Nadir's Court historian gives the exaggerated figures of 100 chiefs and 30,000 common soldiers slain and a vast number taken prisoner. [*Jahankusha*, 353.] Hanway shortly afterwards heard in Persia of 17,000 Indians having been killed. Harcharan-das gives 20,000 and the Mahratta envoy in the imperial camp 10 to 12 thousand men in one account and seven to eight thousand in a later report. [*Brahmendra S. C. No. 41.*] Rustam Ali says that Khan Dauran alone lost 5,000 men, to which we must add at least 3000 for Saadat Khan's division, making a total of 8000 slain.

v2.c18.s7.4

Among the officers slain were Muzaffar Khan (a younger brother of Khan Dauran), three sons of Khan Dauran (Ali Hamid, Muhataram and another), Aslih Khan (the commander of the Emperor's bodyguard), Ali Ahmad Khan,† Shahdad Afghan, Yadgar Hasan Khan (Koka), Ashraf Khan, Itibar Khan, Aqil Beg Kambalposh (‘‘Blanket-wearer’’), Mir Kalu (son of Mir Mushrif) and Ratan Chand (son of the historian Khushhal Chand, who was office-assistant to the imperial Paymaster). Saadat Khan and his nephew Sher Jang, as well as Khwaja Ashura (a son of Khan Dauran) were captured alive.

v2.c18.s7.5

† So called by Mahdi and *Bayan*, but spelt as Hamid Ali in Anandram and the *Chronicle*. *Bayan* and Anandram call him Koka.

v2.c18.s7.6

The loss on the Persian side was 2500 slain and twice as many wounded, according to Hanway, who estimates the Indian casualties in slain as seven times the number of the Persians killed. This relative proportion seems to me to be nearest the truth, though the figures for both sides are exaggerated.‡

v2.c18.s7.7

∗ I reject the absurd story told in *Bayan* p.

v2.c18.s7.8

⁴¹ Hanway (ii. 369) says that in the night following the battle the Indian camp was so very thin that from the Emperor's own quarters to those of the Nizam, which was nearly two miles off, hardly any people were found.

v2.c18.s7.9

‡ The bed-ridden invalid Ali Hazin, who is eternally cursing India,

v2.c18.s7.10

The gains of the victor were immense. Of the elephants, field treasury, guns, baggage and stores of all kinds taken outside the entrenchment, nothing escaped. The booty was beyond count. As soon as Saadat Khan and Khan Dauran were seen to leave the field, their camps were plundered by their own followers and the miscellaneous rabble that accompanied Mughal armies. In a twinkle no trace of these two nobles' vast encampments, not even a tent, was left on their sites. [Shakir, Siyar i. 96.] When the half-dead body of Khan Dauran was brought back, his servants had to borrow a small poleless tent from elsewhere to shelter his head in.

v2.c18.s7.11

A great terror befell the Indian army. All night long the remaining soldiers stood on guard along the camp enclosure, armed and with their horses saddled, ready to meet the enemy's attack. [Shakir ; Chronicle.]

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