History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v2.c21.31

v2.c21.31

Muhammad Sultan, Najabat Khan, and other commanders of the Van, on their elephants kept their ground like hills, while the flood of Rajput charge raged round and round them in eddies. Here the most stubborn and decisive fighting of the day took place. Sword and dagger alone could be plied as the hostile cavaliers grappled together at close quarters. "The ground was dyed crimson with blood like a tulip-bed." The Rajputs, being divided into many mutually antagonistic clans, could not charge in one compact mass; they were broken up into six or seven bodies, each under its own chieftain and each choosing its own point of attack. Thus the force of their impact was divided and weakened as soon as it struck the dense mass of Aurangzib's Van. Each clan engaged the enemy for itself and whirled round its own antagonist, instead of battering down all opposition and cleaving through the Van in resistless career by forming one solid wedge, moving with one will.