Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s29.5

v2.c27.s29.5

Kāshirāj frankly admits that he "wrote 19 years after the event and from memory," but a critical and comparative study of his narrative proves his veracity. A few inaccuracies due to lapse of memory or hurried writing can be easily corrected, often from his own words elsewhere. These are: (i) Malhar Holkar's position was in the extreme right of the Maratha line of battle, and not penultimate as his loose language suggests. (ii) Najib did not leave his position facing Jankoji Sindhia, in order to deliver a flank attack on the Bhāu's centre,—at least not till all was over except the shouting. (iii) Similarly, throughout the contested stage of the battle Shah Pasand Khan merely neutralized the Maratha division (Malhar's) opposite to him, instead of engaging in any close combat with it or with the Bhau's centre, before Malhar's flight. (iv) The Durrānis plundered the Maratha camp not in the night following the battle but next morning. (v) The rival armies stood facing north and south (and not eastwards and westwards, as in Browne's translation.) Sharq-rua in the text means 'counting from the eastern end of the line of battle.' Shākir Khan says that the Ruhela contingent in the Durrāni army barred the road to Delhi, which we know ran southwards and not eastwards from Pānipat city. (See also SPD. xxvii. 259.)