The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.7

c15.s1.7

In the center of the stage were the Mughal and his retainers, the *mansabdārs*, whose primary function was the recruitment and maintenance of specified contingents of the Mughal heavy cavalry, the prescribed size of the contingent indicating the mansabdār's rank. These ranks, it should be noted, did not derive from a hierarchical command structure, but only represented a gradation of status. A military command structure was largely missing. This made for maximal flexibility, but it also meant that the Mughal was not comfortably situated at the apex of a vertical military hierarchy but had to move in a horizontal field of personal relationships with at least the higher-ranking mansabdārs or nobles—this possibly was the reason for the complicated rules of court etiquette, which stressed the otherwise less-than-absolute rulership of the Mughal. In other words, the central, or at least most conspicuous, organizational principle was that of an elaborate predatory war band with an ethos of martial panache and personal loyalty to the Mughal, proven on the battlefield and rewarded with heroic titles. Thus the Mughal primarily worked through a personal network of high-ranking retainers that was ideologically oriented toward conquest.