The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s2: II. Matchlock
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s2
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II. Matchlock
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This was the *tufang* (Steingass, 314) or *bandūq* (id. 202)¹. Great credit is claimed for Akbar in the *Āīn*, i, 113, for the improvements introduced by him in the manufacture of the matchlock. In spite of these, that weapon up to the middle of the 18th century was looked on with less favour than the bow and arrow, which still held their ground. The matchlock was left chiefly to the infantry, who occupied a much inferior position to that of the cavalry in the opinion of Moghul commanders. It was not until the middle of the 18th century, when the way had been shewn by the French and the English, that efforts were made to improve the arms and discipline of the foot soldier.
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¹ The Madras Manual of Ad., iii, 915, has a word *tūpak*, a small cannon, a musket, which I have seen only once elsewhere, namely, in verse 60, line 2, of a Hindi poem on Nādir Shāh by one Tilok Dās (Journal As. S. B. (1897) Vol. LXVI, Part i, p. 10). Of course, in the above form the word would represent the diminutive of *top*, a cannon. But may it not rather be the Indian pronunciation of *tufak* (St. 314, another form of *tufang*, a matchlock)?
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The barrels of Akbar's matchlocks were of two lengths, 66 inches and 41 inches. They were made of rolled strips of steel with the two edges welded together. Both the barrels, (*nāl*, literally, pipe, tube, Steingass, 1378) and the stocks (qundāq, T. id. 970) were profusely decorated with the surface ornament for which India, like the rest of the East, is so justly celebrated. The longer of the two weapons could only have been used, I should say, by a man on foot. Part of the matchlockman’s equipment was a prong or tripod, called shākh-i-tufang, on which the gun was placed when about to be fired (Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ, fol. 178a). Ashob, fol. 182b, calls them sih-pāyah, i. e. three footed or tripods. Seaton says, i, 207, that the prong was sometimes attached to the weapon. According to Bernier, 217, the prongs were of wood.
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I find in W. Egerton, pp. 83, 110, 111, 118, 124, 132, 133, 139, 145, about sixty specimens of the musket and the matchlock. The latter he calls toredār (Shakes., 702, H. a matchlock, from torā, a piece of rope, a gun-match). Thirteen of these guns are figured on plates iv (p. 51) and x (p. 114), and among the figures on p. 79. One matchlock is a miniature weapon, one a revolver with four chambers, one has a rifled barrel, five have flint, and four percussion locks, these latter obvious modern imitations of European models. The other forty-eight are types of the ordinary matchlocks. Of these the shortest is 4 feet 7 inches and the longest 7 feet in length. One, Nº. 671, length 6 feet 5 inches is called a wall-piece; if so, Nos 551, 584, 585, which are longer, must be the same. Two of the specimens have octagonal barrels, a third has a barrel not only square outside but having also a square bore.
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Guns of European make (tufang-i-farang) were much prized, but were only found in the possession of the greatest nobles. It was with one of these, as Mḥd Qāsim, Lāhorī, tells us, ‘Ibratnāmah, 352, that a slave seated behind his master, Ḥaidar Quli Khān, Mīr Ātash, shot Sayyad Ghairat Khān on the 8th Oct. 1720, in the onset made upon Muḥammad Shāh’s tents immediately after the assassination of the Sayyad’s uncle, Ḥusain ‘Alī Khān, Bārhah.
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To the end of the Moghul period the fire arm in ordinary use was the matchlock. The flint lock was little known to them, and, of course, the percussion weapon was never seen, not having been introduced even into European armies until the 19th century (H. Wilkinson, *Engines of War*, 67). The flint lock itself does not seem to have been generally adopted in Europe until the end of the 17th century (id. 67 ¹), and it could hardly have become generally known in the East until a hundred years later. It was not until regular battalions armed and drilled in the European manner, were entertained by the Mah-rattas and the Nawab Wazir, that the flint lock could have got into the hands of Indian troops to any appreciable extent. This seems borne out by the fact that of some sixty fire-arms catalogued by W. Egerton, fifty are match-locks, and only five fitted with the flint lock. A passage in M. Wilks, “South India”, i, 278, note, also shows that in 1751 the flint lock was an absolute novelty to the native armies of Southern India. Fitzclarence, 256, writing so late as 1818 confirms this opinion. He says “The flint-lock, an introduction of the Europeans, is far from being general, and I may even say is never employed by the natives: though the Telingas, armed and discipled after our manner, in the service of Scindiah and Holkar, make use of it. Some good flint locks, are, however, made at Lāhor”. It is true that Khair-ud-dīn, *‘Ibratnāmah*, i, 105, writing of 1173 H. (1759), declares that when Rām Narāyan, deputy governor of Patnah, was defeated by Shāh ‘Ālam, he left on the field among other things six thousand flint muskets (*bandūq-i-chaqmāqī*). This can be only partially true, and even then it must be remembered that, by that time, the importation of arms through the ports on the Hugli must have become active; and what might be true of Bengal and Bahār in the above year, did not represent the condition of things in places farther from the seaboard. In the Dakhin the introduction of the flint-lock weapon, owing to intercourse with the French and English, may have been somewhat earlier. At any rate, it is said that the 12 battalions of Gārdī, or infantry drilled and armed in imitation of the French sepoys, and commanded by Ibrāhīm Khān, Gārdī, at the battle of Pānīpat in Jannary 1761, carried flint-lock muskets (Ḥusain Shāhī, fol. 34b). And, if we may trust Ashob's memory, writing 58 years after the event, the artillery soldiers taking part in the riot of 1141 H. (1729) at the Jāmiʿ Masjid in Dihlī, were armed with flint-lock (chaqmāqī) muskets.
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¹ Voyle and Stevenson, Mil. Dict. (1876), 142, say it was invented about 1635, but not employed in England till 1677.
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The matchlock barrels were covered with elaborate damascened (koft-garī) work, and the stocks adorned with embossed metal work or with various designs either in lacquer, or painting, or inlaying of different materials. The stocks were at times adorned with embossed and engraved mounts in gold, or the butt had an ivory or ebony cap. The barrel was generally attached to the stock by broad bands of metal or by wire of steel, brass, silver or gold. The broad bands were sometimes of perforated design and chased. The stocks were of one or other of two designs, 1) narrow, slightly sloped, of the same width throughout, or 2) strongly curved and very narrow at the grip, expanding to some breadth at the butt. When not in use, matchlocks were kept and carried about in covers made of scarlet or green broad-cloth.
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Pārah. Rustam ʿAlī, Bijnorī, in his "History of the Rohelas" (in Urdu), fol. 22a, in speaking of the fight between Donde Khān and Qutb-ud-dīn Khān, grandson of ʿAzmatullah Khān, near Kīratpur in Rohilkhand, says; bandūq ke pārah charte the. Although this meaning is not in the dictionaries, I take pārah to be here the hammer of the matchlock. Platts 258, and Steingass 230, 246, among other meanings give those of "bolt of a lock or door" and "iron mace", either of which could be easily enough extended into “hammer of a gun”.
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*The match.* The name of this was in Persian either *jāmagī* (Steingass, 351), or *falīṭah* (id. 938), in Hindī *ṭoṛā* (Shak. 702). According to Ashob, fol. 261*b*, to have the match ready and lighted was *falīṭah shahsuwār namūdan*.
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*Powder horn et cetera.* These accoutrements were called collectively *kamr* (Egerton 83, N°. 143, 133, N°. 683). The set consisted of a powder flask, bullet pouches, priming horn (*singṛā*), match-cord, flint and steel, the whole attached to a belt. This belt was often of velvet embroidered in gold. Ashob, fol. 226*b*, gives *shākh* as the word for powder horn. Steingass, 720, does not include this specific signification in the numerous meanings he gives; but Platts, “Hindustani Dictionary”, 716, has *shākh-dahana*, a small powder flask for priming. Fitzclarence, 69, speaking in 1817 of some irregular horse in the Company’s service, half of whom were armed with matchlocks, says “the receptacles which contained their powder and ball are unwieldy, and as they never make use of cartridges for their pieces, they are a long time in loading. Some of them have at least twenty yards of match about their person, similar in appearance to a large ball of pack-thread”. Modern words, adopted from Europeans, were *tozdān* (pouch) and *kārtūs* (cartridge). They are used by Khair-ud-dīn, *‘Ibratnāmah*, i, 422, when recounting René Madec’s defeat in 1191 H. (1777) by Mullā Raḥm Dād Khān. The book itself was written after 1203 H. (1788).
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*Blank Cartridge.* I find the expression *khālī-golī* used for blank cartridge by Rustam ‘Alī, Bijnorī, “History of the Rohelas” (in Urdū), fol. 17*a*: *Bataur jang-i-zargarī khālī golī se apus meṇ chalen*; “As in a goldsmith’s quarrel (a collusive dispute), they fired blank cartridge at each other”.
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*Cailletoque.* This strange word is used by Anquetil Duperron, *Zend-Avesta*, I, xliv, when speaking of Sirāj-ud-Daulah’s escort at Murshidābād (1757), and this word he defines in his index “fusil à mèche, très long, que l’on tire ordinairement en le posant sur un pié fait en espèce de fourche”. The etymology of the word baffled me for a long time, it being impossible, from his spelling, to reconstitute its original form. It is not French, as the variations in spelling sufficiently show. For instance, De la Flotte, i, 258, referring to the Coromandel coast, (where Anquetil also may have picked up the word), speaks of a very long and heavy matchlock, which he calls a *kaitoke* (evidently another phonetic rendering of “cailletoque”). Gentil also, 59, in describing the entry of Ṣalābat Jang’s troops into Aurangābād on the 11th June 1753, mentions “fusils à mèche, qu’on appelle *kaitok*, couverts de drap rouge”. René Madec (c. 1774) spells it *kayetoc* (E. Barbé, “Le Nabab René Madec”, 54). For a time I thought it might be due to the use of *qandūq*, gun-stock, as a name for the whole weapon, though I have never found in native writers any such use of that word. Or it might be a vulgar error for *bandūq*, the ordinary word for a gun. Mr. H. Beveridge suggested to me *milteq*, a gun, as a probable derivation of the word (R. B. Shaw “Sketch of the Turki Language” J. A. S. B., 1878, p. 184). P. de Courteille, Dict. 506, fancies that this word *milteq* is itself a corruption of *bandūq*. In the absence of anything more satisfactory, an explanation of *cailletoque* might be found in *qūltūq*, the armpit, (Shaw, 157, P. de Courteille 435), on the ground that a musket is often carried under the arm!
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But long after I had given up the search, I came across a word for a gun or matchlock, which I am convinced must be the original of that used by the European writers quoted above. I found this word *qaidūq* in my copy of the *Aḥmad-nāmah* of ʿAbd-ul-laṭīf, a rhyming chronicle of Aḥmad Shah’s reign written at Lakhnau in 1184 H. (1770). The two passages are on ff. 15*a* and 15*b*, the first in the rubric and the second in the text; and they read as follows:
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Rubric.
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Dāstān dar bayān kih roze suwārī-i-Wazīr dar rāh mī-raft, o yake az muʿānd dar kamīngāh nishistah, qaiduq, قيدق, bar ū rāndah, az īn maʿnī Wazīr khiyāl-i-fāsid badil az Shāh rasāndah, o derah-i-khūd az Dihlī berūn burdah, binyān-i-fasād rā taʿmīr dād.
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Text.
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Miyān-i-rāh kase qābū giriftah,
Zadah qaiduq [قيدق] barūe ū nihuftah,
Ba qasd-ash garchah ū dāʿiah zad,
Wa-le Ezad khiyāl-ash sākhtah radd,
Giriftand-ash kasān az zormandī,
Kashān burdand ūrā ham chū bandī.
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I cannot find the word in any of the dictionaries, of which I have consulted a good many.
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Jazāil or Jazāir. This was the wall-piece or swivel gun, and it is doubtful whether it should come here, under fire arms carried by the combatant, or under artillery. In some respects it partook of the character of both. Steingass, 362, defines jazāil as a large musket, wall-piece, swivel, a rifle used with a prong or rest. Egerton, 124, note to Nº. 585 refers to jazāils in the Codrington collection which are 7 feet and 8 feet long; this would appear to be the usual length. Ashob, fol. 182b, describing the entrenchments of Muḥammad Shāh outside Karnāl (1151 H., Feb. 1739), twice speaks of something he calls a pushtah, which was put up (andakhtah) by the jazāil-men. This is not the tripod, which is separately mentioned; probably it was a field shelter or slight entrenchment.
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In connection with this weapon we come to gingall, a word used by European writers. Shakespear, 796, says it is H. a swivel &ca, either a corruption of jazāil, or from janjāl, trouble, difficulty; and Steingass, 373, has a word janjāl, crowd, multitude. Yule and Burnell, 285, say that janjāl is “of uncertain origin”. Their examples are Elphinstone (1818) and Shipp (1803—15). Fitzclarence (1818) also uses the word. Janjāl is used in a Hindī poem composed in Bundelkhand in the first half of the 18th century (Journal A. S. B., vol. XLVII, 1878, p. 369). I think that jazāil must be the origin of jinjal (gingall). Substitute, as an uneducated Indian would do, a “j” for the “z”, and you have “jajāil”; then insert a nasal, far from an infrequent occurrence, and at once you have “janjāil”, or quickly pronounced, “janjāl”. Q. E. D. But whether gingall is derived from jazāil or not, these can be little doubt that both words are used in respect of one and the same kind of weapon, as witness Sir Hope Grant’s description of the Chinese gingall (Life, ii, 92). “This weapon is a species of long heavy duck-gun carrying a ball weighing about two pounds; its range is at least 1000 yards. It is placed upon a tripod, from which tolerable aim can be taken”. Lake’s remarks, Sieges, 70, note, show that a ginjal (as he spells it) was in his opinion the same thing as the jazāir or jazāil. “Long matchlocks, of various calibres, used as wall-pieces by the natives of India, which are commonly fixed like swivels, and carry iron balls not exceeding a pound in weight. In the field, they are sometimes carried on the backs of camels”. Fitzclarence, 245, says the ball of the Indian jazāil weighed two or more ounces. Jinjalls, or heavy matchlocks were, as writes captain Thomas Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports”, 45, commonly appropriated to the defence of forts. They carried a ball from one to three ounces in weight; and having very substantial barrels, were too heavy to use without a rest. Many had an iron prong of about a foot in length, fixed on a pivot not far from the nozzle: and this placed on a wall, a bush, or the ground, served as a support. In the defence of mud forts, especially in Bundelkhand, the besieged exhibited extraordinary dexterity, rarely failing to hit their object either in the head or near the heart, even at great distances. All fire arms used by Indians having small cylindrical chambers, and being mostly of a small bore, a wonderful impetus was imparted to the ball. The *juzzail* used by the Afghans in 1842 is described by Colonel Thomas Seaton, "From Cadet to Colonel"; i, 207.
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*Ghor-dāhan* was a kind of *jazā’il*, of which one thousand were made at Lāhor for Mu‘īn-ul-mulk between 1161 and 1167 H. (1748—1754), see the *Tahmās nāmah* of Miskīn, composed in 1196 H., fol. 36*a*. The allusion in the name seems to be to the everted or widened mouth of the barrel.
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*Qidr*. The *Mirāt-i-Ahmadī*, fol. 199*a*, in describing the battle outside Ahmadābād in 1143 H. (1730), between Abhai Singh, Rāhtor, and Sarbuland Khān, speaks of the horsemen with *qidr*, قدر, and matchlocks advancing to give battle. I cannot find what weapon this was. The nearest word I have found is قدر, *qidr*, a cauldron, pot, kettle, Steingass, 957; but this does not suggest an explanation. According to Erskine "History", ii, 294 (note), Osmanli troops lay great store by a kettle, which they carry into the field as other troops do their colours. But at Ahmadābād neither side were Osmanlis.