The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c12.s1.44

c12.s1.44

*Chādar*. In the *Maāsir-i-ʿĀlamgīrī* 295, line 13, year 1098 H. (1686), when the army was before Gulkandah, I find this passage, *o yak tassūj pesh qadam na shudan-i-mardum az bārish-i-tufang o bān o chādar o ḥuqqah ghair az kushtah shudan o zakhmī gardidan maqsad ṣūrat nagirift*. “From the rain of matchlocks and rockets and ‘chādar’ and ‘ḥuqqah’, the men could not advance a single inch, and no purpose was effected but to be slain or wounded”. The context shows that *chādar* is here something that was fired off, but I do not know what. Elsewhere, as the context shows, the word denotes some kind of tent. As for instance in Ashob, fol. 265*a*, *ba pāl wa chādar wa tambū*, where *chādar* cannot possibly mean anything but a kind of tent. I have also seen the word *chādar* employed in a way that made it mean a sort of mantlet used as a field protection to gunners. I have mislaid my reference to the passage.