The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c10.s1.1

c10.s1.1

As to the mode of carrying the sword, Fitzclarence, *Journal*, 69, describing some irregular horse in the Company's service (1817), says "they have a sort of foppery with respect to their sword-belts, which are in general very broad and handsomely embroidered; and, though on horseback, they wear them over the shoulder.” But the sword was not always carried in a belt hung from the shoulder. On plate 8 in B.M. Or. 375 (Rieu, 785), A‘zam Shāh carries his sword by three straps hanging from a waist-belt. The generic name of a sword was *tegh* (Arabic), *shamsher* (Persian) or *talwār* (Hindī). The Arabic word *saif* was also used occasionally. One kind of shortsword was called the *nīmchah-shamsher* (Steingass 1445). It was the weapon carried by Ibrāhīm Qulī Khān in 1137 H. (1725), when he made his attack on Ḥāmid Khan at the governor’s palace in Aḥmadābād (Gujarāt), *Mirāt-i-Aḥmadī*, fol. 179*a*. It is also to be found in the *Akbarnāmah*, Lucknow edition, ii, 225, second line. I have not seen in Indian works the word *palārak* used for a sword in *Mujmil-ut-tārīkh ba‘d Nādirīyah*, p. 110, line 3.