The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s1.1

c11.s1.1

The Moghul bowmen were considered to be especially expert with their weapon; as Bernier, 48, "a horseman shooting six times before a musketeer can fire twice." The word *oqchī* quoted by Horn, 108, from the *Akbarnāmah*, is hardly to be found in the later writers, those of the 18th century; an archer is styled by them a *Tīr-andāz* (literally, arrow-thrower), not *oqchī*¹. But that word is used by Anand Rām once in reference to Aḥmad Abdālī's first invasion in 1161 H. (I. O. L. N°. 1612, fol. 70*b*), though there the scribe has spelt it *aunchī*. Shakespear, 219, has what he classes as a Hindī word, *opchī*, defined as "A man armed with weapons or clothed in mail." May this not be a corruption of *oqchī*, an archer? This word, *opchi*, is used by Shridhar Murlīdhar in his poem on Farrukhsīyar, line 594, (Journal A. S. B. (1900) Vol. LXIX, i, 14, 39):