The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13: Chapter XI
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13
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Chapter XI
c13.1
Bernier, 217, says the artillery in 1658 was of two sorts, the heavy and the light, or "as they call the latter, the artillery of the Stirrup". Another general name sometimes applied to the light field guns is *topkhānah-i-rezah* or "small artillery" (*Aḥwāl-ul-khawāqin*, 190*a*). We also find it styled *topkhānah-i-jambishī*, "moveable artillery", by Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin ms. 495, fol. 1144*a* and elsewhere. But more frequently the reading is *top-khānah-i-jinsī*. We find this in Khāfī Khān, ii, 953, where the meaning seems to be "miscellaneous artillery" and in *Tārīkh-i-Aḥmad Shāh*, fol. 124*b*, under date the 18th Jamādī ii, 1167 H., 11th April 1754. In the latter passage the sentence reads — "the *jinsī* artillery, large and small, was ordered to be collected under the *Jharokah*" (balconied window of the palace). Here it is made to include cannon of all sizes, and is used probably as equivalent to "the artillery attached to the emperor's person". *Top-khānah-i-jilau*, we are told by Colonel Colombari, 36, is the word used by Mīrzā Mahdī in *Jahān kushāe Nādirī* for "moveable artillery". I have not been able to find the passage intended. But the word is used in *Mujmil-ut-tārīkh ba'd Nādirīyah*, p. 86, line 9.
c13.2
This division into heavy and light artillery endured up to the end of the Moghul period, but I should describe the Artillery of the Stirrup rather as a subdivision of the Light artillery than as an identical term for it. For instance, distinct from the Artillery of the Stirrup proper, Bernier tells us that Aurangzīb had two hundred to three hundred light camels, each of which carried a small field-piece, of the size of a double musket, attached on the back of the animal “much in the same way as swivels are fixed in our vessels”.
c13.3
*Artillery of the Stirrup.* The Stirrup (*rikāb*) was a figurative expression for the emperor’s immediate entourage. To be at Court was to be *ḥāẓir-i-rikāb*, “present with the Stirrup”. The artillery called by this name consisted in Bernier’s time (*Travels*, 218, 363) of “fifty or sixty small field-pieces, all of brass; each piece mounted on a well-made and handsomely painted carriage containing two ammunition chests, one behind and one in front, and ornamented with a variety of small red streamers. The carriage with the driver was drawn by two fine horses, and attended by a third horse, led by an assistant driver as a relay. The light artillery is always intended to be near the king’s person, and on that account takes the name of the artillery of the stirrup. When he resumes his journey in the morning and is disposed to shoot or hunt in game preserves, the avenues to which are guarded, it moves straight forward and reaches with all possible speed the next place of encampment, where the royal tents and those of the principal omrahs have been pitched since the preceding day. The guns are there ranged in front of the king’s quarters, and by way of signal to the army, fire a volley the moment he arrives”. Sendhiah in later days imitated this practice, but called such guns his “orderly” artillery (Broughton, 109). But after ‘Ālamgīr’s reign and until European ideas were introduced towards the end of the 18th century, I do not find mention anywhere else that cannon were dragged by horses. Either oxen or elephants were used, to the exclusion of horses.
c13.4
*Names for Light Cannon.* For the lighter guns we come across many names, several of which are probably different words for practically the same thing. The names that I have collected are 1) *Gajnāl*, 2) *Hathnāl*, 3) *Shutarnāl*, 4) *Zambūrak*, 5) *Shāhīn*, 6) *Dhamākah*, 7) *Rāmjanakī* and 8) *Rahkalah*. There is also a word *rahrau* (literally, “mover, traveller”) used on fol. 100*b* of the *Tārīkh-i-ʿĀlamgīr Sānī*. Referring to the dismantling of the Dihlī fort by Aḥmad Shāh Abdālī in 1170 H. (January 1757) it says: “the great and small cannon that were on the bastions and over the gateways were brought down; also the *rahrau* of the moveable (*jinsī*) artillery”. In reality there seem to have been only two classes of light artillery, which may be designated respectively, (I) Swivel-guns or Wall-pieces, (II) Field pieces. The distinction lies in the fact that the first class, the smaller pieces, were carried on the backs of animals, while the second were transported on some sort of wheeled carriage. The *Rahkalah* (Nº. 8) represents the second of these classes, and the other seven belong to the first category.
c13.5
1) *Gajnāl*, 2) *Hathnāl*. The words mean literally “elephant barrel” from H. *gaj* and H. *hāthī*, elephant, and P. *nāl*, a tube or gun-barrel; for the former Steingass, 1017, has the alternative form *kajnāl*. They are mentioned in the *Āīn*, i, 113, and were thus called because they were carried on elephants backs. From the *Jauhar-i-ṣamṣām* (Fuller’s translation, fol. 50) it would seem that each elephant carried two *gajnāl* pieces and two soldiers. We are led to infer that they were fired from the back of the elephant. But perhaps the gun was placed on the elephant for transport only, and dismounted before it was discharged. In any case, the practice of using elephants for such a purpose soon ceased to be common, as we seldom find any trace of it in the later reigns. The word *narnāl*, literally “male-barrel”, quoted by Horn, 28, from the *Āīn*, i, 113, I have never met with in any of the later writers. It was Akbar’s name for matchlocks which one man could carry.
c13.6
3) *Shutarnāl*, 4) *Zambūrak*, 5) *Shāhīn*. These words seem all three to refer to the same weapon, what we should call a swivel-gun or wall-piece. *Shutarnāl* is literally “camel-gun barrel”, and denotes the fact that they were sometimes carried and fired from camels’ backs. *Zambūrak* is derived from *zambūr*, a bee or wasp, with a diminutive added, and thus means “a little wasp”, probably in allusion to its sound when fired, or its power of stinging or wounding. *Shāhīn*, literally “falcon”, seems a later name for the same thing; a name which was brought into India by Nādir Shāh (1738—9) or Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī (c. 1760). Horn, 28, refers to it, quoting from Dowson’s Elliot, viii, 398, a passage in *Nigārnāmah-i-Hind* of Sayyad Ghulām ʿAlī. See also W. Egerton, 29. An anonymous Indian writer (*Waqāʾi-i-diyār-i-maghrib*) describing the Durrānī empire in 1212 H. (1797-8), writes of “the *shāhīn-khānah*, which are also called *zambūrak*”. The name *shāhīn* may have been a translation of the European “falconet”. Colonel F. Colombari “Les Zemboureks”, Paris, 1853, p. 28, says it was the Afghans of Qandahār who first fixed the *zambūrak* or falconet to the saddle by a moveable pivot. This mode was in use by them when they invaded Persia in 1722. Up to that time the camel had been used for transport only; the weapon when in use being placed on a rough wooden carriage, on the ground.
c13.7
As to the size of the *zambūrak* or *shutarnāl*, we are told by Bernier, 217, that it was “a small field-piece of the size of a double musket”. Horn, 28, quoting from the French edition of Bernier (Paris, 1670, p. 110, ed. A. Constable 47, 218) adds that “a man seated behind it on the camel can load and discharge the gun without dismounting”. A later observer gives a different account of their use (Seir, i, 250, note 34). “Zamburaks are long swivels with one or two-pound balls. Two of them are carried fastened upon the saddle of a camel; and when they are brought into play, the camel is, as usual, made to kneel on the ground; but to prevent his rising, each leg is fastened, bent at it is, with cord, and the animal remains immoveable”. According to Jonas Hanway, “Revolutions of Persia”, 3d ed. 1762, ii, 153, this method was also adopted by the Persians for their “harquebuses”. “Each of these pieces, with its stock, was mounted on a camel, which lay down at command; and from the backs of these animals, trained to this exercise, they charged and fired these arms”. Mundy, 215, states the way of using the camel-gun differently: “the gun revolves on a swivel fixed on the pummel of the saddle, and the bombardier, sitting astride behind it, loads and fires with wonderful quickness”. This refers to Sendiah’s army in 1828.
c13.8
6) *Dhamākah*. In one or two places I find *Dhamākah* mentioned along with *rahkalah*, as for instance in *Jauhar-i-ṣamṣām*, fol. 155*a* and *Kāmwar Khān*, 227 (year 1132 H.). The word is used in the *Āīn*, i, 115, N°. 39, for some kind of matchlock. But it was probably applied in later times to a small field piece of the same kind as the *rahkalah*, although I am unable to tell in what particulars they differed. The word is, of course, the Hindī *dhamākāh*, the sound made by any heavy body falling on to the ground. I recollect, in a case of murder brought before me, that this word was applied to the thud made by a dead body falling into a well. Shakespear does not give the word in this, its more usual, meaning, but defines it as a kind of cannon carried on an elephant. Forbes copies Shakespear. Fallon, 659, has, however, as second meaning “a blow, thump”; and as third meaning the very vague word “firelock”, which does not suit the passages where I have found the word; it was rather some kind of light field piece.
c13.9
7) *Rāmjanakī*. Another unusual word for some sort of light field-piece is *rāmjakī* or *rāmjanakī* (*Jauhar-i-ṣamṣām*, fol. 155*a*). I also find the word used during the period 1134--1147 H. in the *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, fol. 216*b*, where I read it *Rāmchangī*. It is given as *Rāmjangī* on fol. 8*a* of the *Hidāyat-ul-quwāid* of Hidāyat-ullah, Bahārī, composed in 1128 H. I cannot suggest even a derivation for the name.
c13.10
*Organ* (*Arghun*). "A weapon called an *organ*, which is composed of about 36 gun barrels so joined as to fire at once"; Letter from De Boigne's camp at Mairtha, dated 13th Sept. 1790, in H. Compton's "Military adventurers", p. 61. Steingass, 38, has, Greek, ارغن an *organ*, or ارغون. Mr. Compton suggests the comparison with a *mitrailleuse*.
c13.11
*Chalanī*. This is a word used by Rustam ʿAlī, Bijnorī, in his "History of the Rohelahs", fol. 17*a*: *ḥukm taiyārī sāz ʿarāq, rahkalah, chalanī, gajnāl, shutarnāl kā*. Evidently from the collocation of words it is some sort of offensive weapon. But as to what it is the dictionaries give no help; and I have not met the word elsewhere.
c13.12
*Field Pieces*. We come now to the second class of light artillery, that of field pieces mounted on wheeled carriages. Of the further subdivision of this branch into ordinary field artillery and artillery of the stirrup we have already spoken. I have not come across any description of the pieces in purely Moghul times, but Fitzclarence, 88, writes thus of those taken from the Mahrattas at Jabalpur in 1817. "They were of cast brass with iron cylinders, two of them three and two six-pounders, but they are so thick that till I looked at the bore I thought they were six and nine. Six tumbrils with their bullocks fell into our hands, with much ammunition and great stores of balls, grape and chain-shot. They appeared to be very careless with their powder, as large quantities of it lay loose near the guns... The carriages of the guns and tumbrils have hands painted on them in red, and the only explanation I could get of the emblem, used here as well as on the colours, is that it is meant for *pūjah* (worship)"¹.
c13.13
¹ On the significance of the open hand as an emblem much light is thrown in a learned article by the late Mr. O'Neill in the "Pall Mall Magazine" for June 1895, pp. 59—72.
c13.14
Thirteen of the four-pounders taken from the Mahrattas outside Dihlī in September 1803 were of a similar make, namely, they were iron cylinders or bores over which it would seem the metal was run in casting the piece, “the adherence being so close that no chasm appeared, and nothing but the different colours of the two metals discovered the junction. The iron cylinder or bore was composed of four longitudinal pieces of hammered iron, remarkably close and neatly fitted throughout the bore” (Thorn, “War”, 117). Here again we have to remember that these guns were most probably produced in workshops superintended by the Frenchmen in the Mahratta service.
c13.15
*Rahkalah*. In all histories of the later Moghul period we find a word *rahkalah* used in connection with artillery. Literally it means a cart (Shakes. 1203, Hindī). The word *rahkalah* may be heard to this day in the Upper Duāb applied to the smallest size of bullock-cart, one having a platform or body and wheels, but no sides. This cart, also called a *larrī*, is used to carry produce from the fields to the threshing floor, and for similar light work. The word seems also to be in ordinary use in the town of Bombay for a country cart¹. But in historical works it means a field piece or small gun, including of course the vehicle for its transport. These guns were drawn by bullocks. No doubt, as a passage in the *Akhbār-i-muḥabbat*, p. 277, would show, *rahkalah* was strictly speaking the name of the gun-carriage only: *Har do dast dar zer-i-rahkalah burdah, top rā ba rahkalah tā sīnah bardāsht*, “Bringing both hands beneath the *rahkalah*, he lifted both gun (*top*) and carriage (*rahkalah*) as high as his chest”. In ordinary circumstances no such distinction was made, and when we read of the number of *top* and *rahkalah* in an army, we understand thereby so many siege-guns and field pieces. The word *arābah* is distinctly used for a field piece in line 1317 of the Hindī poem by Shrīdhar Murlīdhar of Prāg on the battle between Farrukhsīyar and Jahāndār Shāh, composed c. 1712;
c13.16
¹ Parliamentary Paper No. 538, March 1894, p. 30, para. 29 of report by Acting Commr. of Police, Bombay, “natives of Kathiawād, who for the most part find an occupation in driving *reklas* (small bullock carts)”. Apparently these *reklas* are the small gaily painted bullock carriages used for conveying people about in Bombay, one of which is depicted in the water colour by H. Van Ruilt (Loan Collection, Empire of India Exhibition, 1895, No. 398).
c13.17
कड़ कड़ कराकड़ सों अराबे छुटे तट पकनि टापकी
*kaṛ-kaṛ-kaṛā-kaṛ* soṇ *arābe chhuṭen, taṭ pakani ṭāpkī*
c13.18
But more frequently he uses the word *rahkalā*. Another 18th century poet, Lāl, in his *Chhatar-prakāsh* (p. 267, dohā 15, line 2) also uses *arābe* as the name of a swivel-gun:
c13.19
गोली गोला छुटत अराबे
*Golī-golā chhuṭat arābe.*
c13.20
Calling the whole thing a cart (*rahkalah* or *ʿarābah*) is only equivalent to our saying a "gun", when we mean the gun with its carriage, or the Indians saying *chakrā*, a wheel, when they mean a cart. In all three cases the name of a part is used to express the whole of a thing.
c13.21
*ʿArādah-top*. This is the name used in Khurāsān for what must have been a field-piece, that is, in other words, a *rahkalah*. It is used by Maḥmūd-ul-Munshī in his *Tārīkh-i-Aḥmad Shāhī*, fol. 19*b* and elsewhere.
c13.22
*Qasārah*. This weapon, evidently meaning some sort of field piece, is mentioned by the author of the *Ḥusain Shāhī*, fol. 71*b* and elsewhere, as forming part of the equipment of the Durrānī armies.
c13.23
Remarks on use of the words " *ʿarābah* " and " *rahkalah* ". I have not traced back the first adoption, in the secondary sense of a field piece, of a word originally meaning a cart. Either the usage was of Indian origin and of a date anterior to Bābar's time; or it might have begun with the translation of a Turkish or Arabic word already in use in the Chaghatāe army. The former is, I think, the preferable opinion.
c13.24
Thus Bābar in his “Memoirs” uses a word which also means originally a cart, the Arabic word *ʿarābah*. But if this were in Turkī the well known and accepted name of the cart on which a gun was placed, why does Bābar’s cousin and contemporary use the Persian word *gardūn* (lit. wheel) for the same thing? See *Tārīkh-i-Rashīdī*, ed. Elias and Ross, 474.
c13.25
*ʿArābah*. Does Bābar by this word mean nothing but a cart, or does he include in it the field piece also? The question is an interesting one. When recounting his preparations for the battle of Pānīpat in April 1526, Bābar, “Mémoires”, P. de C., ii, 161, tells us that he ordered his men to bring as many *ʿarābah* as they could, and they collected seven-hundred. These were bound together with strips of hide, and in the intervals palisades of some sort (*tūrah*) were erected, the whole forming a kind of stockade or field protection. How, then, should we translate here the word *ʿarābah*? Literally it is, of course, cart; and for that literal version Pavet de Courteille, ii, 273, and Dr. Horn, 28, give their vote. On the contrary, Leyden and Erskine, “Memoirs of Baber”, 304, prefer to render the word by “gun-carriage” and in other places “gun”. Sir Henry Elliot follows suit, “Mah. Hist.”, vi, 468, adding the curious assertion that “Bābar had no light pieces at Pānīpat”. Pavet de Courteille admits that a cart (*ʿarābah*), being used to transport a field piece, could also be described as a “gun-carriage”. But the main objection to this rendering is, in his opinion and that of Dr. Horn, the improbability that Bābar had 700 cannon of any sort at Pānīpat; or that in another instance, given by Bābar, the Persians could have had 2000 pieces, the word used being in both cases the same, that is, *ʿarābah* (P. de Courteille, “Mémoires”, ii, 161, 376). Elphinstone, “History”, 363, following W. Erskine in his later work on Bābar and Humāyūn, i, 433, writes, “linked his guns together by ropes of twisted leather”.
c13.26
Looking to the small size of these *Rahkalahs*, throwing probably a ball of only two or three pounds' weight, it would not be very difficult to collect a large number of them. Nor would it be impossible to gather together seven hundred or even two thousand of such light pieces. Taking, then, all the probabilities of the case into account, the view of Pavet de Courteille and of Dr. Horn seems wrong, while that of Leyden, Erskine, Elphinstone and H. M. Elliot is more likely to be correct. We may safely believe, I think, that by *ʿarābah* Bābar meant not only a cart, but a cart with the small gun carried on it. The only difficulty is that in other passages Bābar combines with the word *ʿarābah* (cart) the word *zarb-zan* (lit. "blow-striker") to designate the gun itself ("Mémoires", P. de C., ii, 168, 336), and therefore, it may be argued, he would mean by *ʿarābah*, used by itself, a cart and nothing more. But these very passages, where *zarb-zan* occurs, may be turned round to strengthen the argument in favour of *ʿarābah* sometimes meaning a gun. For they show that Bābar had field pieces in his army. If so, then where were these guns at the decisive battle of Pānīpat? Unless we accept with H. M. Elliot the very improbable conclusion that Bābar had then no light artillery at all, the obvious answer is that they were on the *ʿarābah*, with which he formed his first line of field defences in preparation for the battle. This operation of entrenching the artillery and chaining the guns together, was a common device in the battles of later times. And we may infer that what his successors did so often afterwards, was what Bābar did at Pānīpat, that is, he placed his artillery in front of his force in a long line, and there partially entrenched it and chained the guns together.
c13.27
*Tūrah* or *Tobrah*. As part of this question of Bābar's use of guns in his battle against Ibrāhīm Lodī at Pānīpat, there arises a curious side issue about the meaning of the obscure word *tūrah*, توره, or *tobrah*, توبـره. First of all, which is correct, *tūrah* or *tobrah*? The latter form is that used by Nizām-ud-dīn, *Tabaqāt-i-Akbar Shāhī*, fol. 141*a*, followed by his friend, *ʿAbd-ul-qādir*, Budāonī, (Bibl. Ind. i, 334, line 4). It does not seem to be a scribe's error, for in that case it would not have been adopted by a contemporary, Budāonī, without any question. It is strange that Nizām-ud-dīn Bakhshī, a soldier, a man highly placed at Akbar's court, and living barely two generations from Bābar's time, should have misread Bābar's "Memoirs", from which, as is quite evident, he derived his information about the battle of Pānīpat. Yet all the other sources that I have been enabled to consult agree in giving the word as *tūrah*. I am indebted to Mr. H. Beveridge for many valuable notes on these authorities. An excellent manuscript of the Turkī *Bābarnāmah* owned by Mr. Sayyad Alī Bilgramī, fol. 264*b*, line 6, has *tūrā* twice in the same line; Ilminsky's Turkish text, p. 341, four lines from foot, has *tūrā* twice; the Bombay lithographed edition of the Persian text, p. 173, has *tūrah*. In the *Akbarnāmah* (Lucknow edition i, 74, line 2), Abul Fazl, who is here evidently using Bābar's "Memoirs", has *tūrah*. Then Erskine and Leyden, in their translation of the *Bābarnāmah*, p. 304, found the word to be *tūrah* in the manuscripts they used; and in a later work, "History of India", i, 433, Erskine practically adheres to this version. To sum up, there can be little doubt, I think, that the word Bābar used was *tūrah* and not *tobrah*.
c13.28
It is a little difficult to account for Nizām-ud-dīn making such a mistake. Perhaps finding a word *tūrah*, of which he did not know the meaning he altered it into the more obvious term, *tobrah*, a nose-bag. Although he thus obtained a word more definite in meaning than the other, one asks in astonishment how leather nose-bags could be converted into breast-works or palisades or shields? Here the ingenuity of *ʿAbd-ul-qādir*, Budāonī, comes to the rescue. In his *Muntakhab-ut-tawārīkh*, Bib. Ind., i, 334, line 4, which is almost word for word a copy of Nizām-ud-dīn, and therefore of the *Bābarnāmah*, he writes "between each pair of carts (*ʿarābah*), six or seven nose-bags (*tobrah*) full of earth (*pur-i-khāk*) were arranged”. Being furnished by Nizām-ud-dīn with the word *tobrah*, a nose-bag, he at once invented the earth with which he filled them, in order to make the use of such an unsuitable article somewhat more plausible. Of nose-bags there must have been plenty in an army consisting nearly entirely of cavalry, but even four thousand nine hundred of them (700 × 7) would furnish a very sorry protection to the soldiers, and if filled with earth could not be carried “raised in the air” as the *tūrah* occasionally was. Sir H. M. Elliot, “Mahomedan Historians”, vi, 469, accepts Budāonī’s version as quite satisfactory, and as affording a gratifying explanation of the use to which the nose-bags were put: see Dr. Horn, 74, 75, who gives the references just quoted, which I have verified. Colonel Ranking, i, 439, I am glad to see, takes the view that I do, namely, that *tobrah* is a wrong reading for *tūrah*. The difficulty about carrying in the air also throws doubt on D. Price’s (“Retrospect”, iv, 678) and H. Beveridge’s (*Akbarnāmah* i, 242) rendering of “gabion”; although in fairness, one is bound to admit that this word fits better than any other the description of the *tūrah* as used by Bābar at the battle of Pānīpat.
c13.29
At times the leather nose-bags (*tobrah*) were, however, put to strange uses, as can be seen in the *Tārīkh-i-Ḥusain Shāhī*, fol. 39*a*. At the end of 1760, during one of the encounters which preceded the crowning victory of Pānīpat, Shāh Pasand Khān, generalissimo of Aḥmad Shāh, Durrānī, was seated on the edge of a well, cleaning the blood from his sword, when Shujāʿ-ud-daulah’s retinue passed by. On the Nawāb congratulating him, the general asked, “How many infidels thinkest thou we have slain?” “At the least five thousand”, replied the Nawāb. The Afghān said jokingly, “Give me one rupee each for them, and I will make over to thee twenty thousand heads”. Then he shouted to his troopers, and each man as he rode up emptied the heads out of his nose-bag at the feet of the Nawāb. There were from two to four in each bag.
c13.30
*Turah*, the meaning of the word. W. Erskine, “Memoirs of Baber”, 304, in the passage we have just been discussing, translates “breastworks”, and adds in a note that “the meaning assigned to *Turah* is merely conjectural”. In addition to its use as a term of military art, *tūrah* has several other meanings, some of which are better known. Steingass, 334, has *torah*, Turkish, “law, regulation, custom, rite, a law institnted by Changīz Khān”. The meaning under discussion he gives on the same page under the form of *tūrā*. But he does not seem to have the not unusual one of “scion of a royal house”, (especially when set up as a claimant to the throne), see Pavet de Courteille, “Dict.” 224. In this last sense Indian writers use the word whenever the occasion arises. For one instance among many, Muḥammad Qāsim, Aurangābādī, applies it in his *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, 172*b*, to the pretender, Prince Nekūsīyar. The above three meanings can easily be derived from the Arabic word وراء, “Anything behind which shelter can be taken” (Kazmirski, ii, 1516). The same word, with quite a different meaning, turns up in the *Bādshāhnāmah*, ii, 208, year 1051 H. (1641-2). It is used there for a gift made to the widows of Yamīn-ud-daulah, and is explained as being “nine pieces of unsewn clothing”. According to Platts, “Dictionary”, 342, this *torah* is an Indian word for dishes or trays of food and so forth, sent out as presents. In this sense it is also used more than once in the *Tārīkh-i-ʿĀlamgīr Sānī*, year 1171 H., folios 173*b*, 175*a* and 176*b*.
c13.31
As a military term, what then was a *tūrah* or *tūrā*? In the passage having reference to the battle of Pānīpat, Pavet de Courteille, “Mémoires”, ii, 161, translates “sorte de palissades”. In his “Dictionnaire Turc-Oriental”, 225, the same author defines the *tūrah* as pieces of wood and iron bound together with chains and hooks, behind which the soldiers took shelter. The word appears in other places in Bābar’s memoirs. For instance, "the infantry marched in front, their *tūrah* raised in the air" (P. de C., i, 150, Ilminsky, p. 86, six lines from foot, Erskine, 74), and "orders were given to prepare *tūrah* and ladders, and also all that is necessary for the *tūrah*, without which a town cannot be taken by assault" (id. ii, 328). The exact kind of thing intended is thus left extremely vague, as is shown by Pavet de Courteille's alternatives ("Mémoires", ii, 328) "sorte de palissades ou de boucliers". Perhaps Bābar employed the word in a shifting, somewhat elastic sense, applying it to anything coming under the general meaning of "a shelter" or "a protection". I suppose it was usually what European military writers would call a mantlet (see Lake, "Sieges", 216, note). Apparently the same sort of thing was used by the Mahrattahs at the siege of Karnāla in 1670, where "they advanced by throwing up . . . . boards which they carry before them", Grant Duff, 110, quoting the Bombay Records. Quatremère, "Histoire des Mongoles de la Perse", i, 337, note, also holds that the *tūrah* was "une sorte de mantelet", relying on three passages in the *Zafarnāmah*, two in the *Ḥabīb-us-siyar*, and one respectively in the *Matlaʿ-us-saʿdain* and the *Akbarnāmah*¹.
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¹ I am indebted to Mr. H. Beveridge for calling my attention to the passage in Quatremère. The work referred to is "Collection Orientale, Manuscrits inédits de la Bibliothèque Royale — Histoire des Mongoles de la Perse, écrite en Persan par Raschid eldin, publiée, traduite en français, accompagnée de notes et d'un mémoire sur la vie et les œuvres de l'auteur", par [Etienne Marc] Quatremère, Vol. i, folio, Paris, 1836. The Persian title is *Jāmiʿ-ut-tawārīkh*.
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Muhrah-i-rahkalah. This is an expression used by Mḥd Qāsim, Aurangābādī *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, 210a, for which I can find no meaning in the Persian dictionary. Describing his preparations for resisting an expected night attack of the Mahrattahs, he says, *Ba har jānib kih dar-rasand jamīʿ-i-mubārizān farāham āmdah, muhrah-i-rahkalah ba muqābilah-i-ān nā-pākān bāyad kard*. From this I infer that it means the nozzle or mouth of the gun. The same word is used, id. 126b, where it evidently means “chessman”. J. Shakespear, 2003, gives muhrī (which he derives from muṇh, face) as the bore of a gun. This must be Mḥd Qāsim’s meaning in the first of the above passages; but is not the word more probably connected with the Persian morī or muhri, a drain pipe? Khushḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 1004b, uses the expression az muhrah-i-bandūq majrūḥ gash-tah: and again id. 1015b (twice) and 1019a. In the second of these four cases the word seems to refer to the mouth of the cannon; in the first, third, and fourth, to the ball or bullet itself. Ashob, fol. 262b, uses Muhrah quite plainly for the muzzle of a gun. He tells us that in 1739, during Nādir Shāh’s general slaughter in Dihlī, having no weapons to defend their warehouses, some merchants resolved on frightening the Persians into leaving them unmolested. They removed the poles and bambus from their thatched roof, laid them on the walls and the top of the gate, with their ends toward the street, so that they looked like the barrels of matchlocks or wallpieces, with their muzzles (muhrah) showing.
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Bān (Rockets). Dr. Horn speaks of these on p. 39 of his treatise. Some form of rocket or fire-arrow was in use among Hindus from very early times. The word bān is said by Steingass, 152, to be from vāna, Sanskrit for an arrow. But takhsh used for a rocket in Elliot, “M. Hist.”, iii, 439, (Malfūzāt-i-Taimūrī), as quoted by Egerton, 17, is not found in any modern work. In the Āīn, i, 110, N°. 13, we have takhsh kamān, but that is explained as a small bow, while rockets appear as bān, N°. 77, p. 112. Ḥuqgah-i-ātash, defined by Steingass, 426, as a kind of rocket, has been placed by me under mortars, which see, ante p. 129. The stick of a rocket was apparently called chharī (H. a stick), see Khāfī Khān, ii, 304, line 15, year 1095 H., ṣadmah-i-chobchharī-i-bān ba dahān-i-ū rasīdah būd: “He had received a blow on the mouth from the stick (chob-chharī) of a rocket”. In Tārīkh-i-ʿĀlamgīr Sānī, fol. 152a, we have a word descriptive of some portion of a rocket, which reads پولك, pūlak, but must be intended, I think, for پونگا, pūngā, “a hollow tube”, Platts, “Dictionary”, 281. A thing called qainchi-i-bān is mentioned twice in the Aḥwāl-i-khawāqin (209b, 219b) and Khūshḥāl Chand speaks of Mahābat Jang, governor of Bengal, having with him in 1155 H. (1742) two thousand qaichī-i-bān [Nādir-uz-zamānī, Berlin Ms. Nº. 495, fol. 1128a]. See also Ashob, fol. 110a, and again 122a, who uses the word qaichī when writing in 1198—1199 H. of the events of 1150 H. I am not able to say what this was; but I guess it to have been a tripod or support from which the rocket was fired. Steingass, 997, gives qainchi, scissors. Perhaps, however, it is only one of the descriptive words so often used, like zanjīr with elephants or rās with horses; in that case it adds nothing to the meaning. Another obscure name, in connection with rockets, kahak-bānhā, is found in the Akbarnāmah (Lucknow edition, iii, 19, line 9). The only suggestion I can offer is, that it refers to the screaming noise made by some special kind of rocket, and that the word is, H., kuhuk, the cry of the koil, or scream of the peacock.
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Rockets were an invariable part of the equipment of a Moghul army. Bernier, 48, speaks of their being used by Dārā Shukoh at the battle of Samūgaṛh in 1658, and references to them might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Ashob, fol. 241a, speaks of the great number of rockets which fell into Nādir Shāh’s hands with the rest of Muḥammad Shāh’s artillery in 1152 (1739). The rocket, according to this writer, was invented and first used in the Dakhin. In his time they were chiefly carried on camels, each of which carried ten rockets besides the rocket man. At times they were conveyed on carts drawn by two or four bullocks, each cart carrying fifteen rockets, besides the necessary attendants. The idea of the Congreve rocket, introduced into the British service in 1806, is said to have been obtained from those used by Tipū Sultān at Seringapatam in 1799, where Congreve was present as a subaltern. But rockets were not peculiar to Maisūr, they had been used in all ages and before that time had spread all over India. They were used by the Nāgpur Rajah at Jabalpur in 1817 (Fitzclarence, 87).
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The Bān is Nº. 77 of the list of weapons in the Āīn, i, 112, and is figure 62 of plate xiv. It was adorned with a small triangular flag of green, white, or red. Rocket men marched on each side of the emperor's moving throne or of his elephant. This practice was imitated by the Dutch envoy Kötelär, in his procession into Lāhor in 1712 (Valentyn, iv, 283).
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We possess several descriptions of the rocket. Moor, 509, quoting Major Dirom, says “the rocket consisted of an iron tube of about a foot long and an inch in diameter, fixed to a bambū rod of ten or twelve feet long. The tube being filled with combustible composition, is set fire to, and being directed by the hand flies like an arrow to the distance of upwards of 1000 yards. Some of the rockets have a chamber, and burst like a shell; others called ground rockets, have a serpentine motion, and on striking the ground rise again and bound along till their force be spent. They make a great noise and exceedingly annoy the native cavalry in India, who move in great bodies; but are easily avoided or seldom take effect against our troops, who are formed in lines of great extent and no great depth”.
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They are thus spoken of by an anonymous European, writing in French about 1767, Orme Mss. 4307, “Fouquets (bān), a species of rocket or pipe of iron filled with fine powder well rammed, and tied to long sticks. They make a great noise in the air. They are used to throw at crowds and to embarrass cavalry, but it is easy to protect oneself against them. Mostly they create more disorder than they do damage. The Rohelahs are reputed more skilful with them than any one else. Every army has some. The foot soldiers in charge might be styled “grenadiers””.
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Difficulties arising in the use of rockets are well described by Captain Thomas Williamson, 62, "*Bāns* are not very safe engines, being apt to turn back on those who use them. They are much employed among the native powers. The contrivance is very simple, being nothing more than a hollow cylinder of iron, about ten inches or a foot long, and from two to three inches in diameter, closed at the fore end, and the other having a small aperture for filling. These cylinders are tied strongly to *lāthies*, or bamboo staves, six or seven feet long, parallel to the thickest end of the bamboo. The fuze at the vent is lighted, the direction is given by the operator, a slight cast of the hand commences the motion, and then the dangerous missile proceeds to its destination. The panic it occasions among cavalry is wonderful! When it does fall where intended its effect is inconceivable; all fly from the hissing winding visitor, receiving perhaps a smart stroke from the stick, which gives direction to the tube and often causes it to make the most sudden and unexpected traverses. So delicate, indeed, is the management of this tremendons weapon, that without great precaution, those who discharge them are not safe, and it requires much practice, not only to give them due elevation, by which their distance is proportioned, but to ensure that they shall not, in the very act of discharging, receive any improper bias, which would infallibly produce mischief among the party".
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M. Wilks, "Hist. Sketches", ii, 27, note, says "The Indian rocket derives its projectile force from the same composition which is used in the rockets of ordinary fire works; the cylinder which contains it is of iron; and sometimes gunpowder at its extremity causes it to explode when it has reached its object: a straight sword blade is also not unfrequently affixed to the rocket; an attached bambu or reed steadies its flight; the rocket men are all trained to give them an elevation proportioned to the varying dimensions of the cylinder and the distance of the object to be struck: as those projected to any distance describe a parabola of considerable height, a single rocket is easily avoided, but when the flight is numerous, the attempt would be useless and their momentum is always sufficient to destroy a man or a horse. Such was the ancient Indian instrument, so inferior to the Congreve rocket of modern European warfare”.
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Lastly, Fitzclarence, “Journey”, 255, holds that “Rockets were early brought into use and are far from being an ineffectual weapon. They have an iron cylinder fastened with untanned leather thongs and transported on horses or animals, and on being lighted an additional impetus is given to them from the foot of the thrower. They will pass through the body of a horse or man”. Opposite p. 35 of his book he gives a plate showing a private in the Camel Rocket Corps then (1817) forming part of the Bengal Army.
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*Mahtāb*. On Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān’s being despatched in 1714 against Ajīt Singh of Jodhpur, part of his equipment was 100 *Mahtāb*. I am not sure what these were; but as they are named along with rockets, I presume they were some kind of missile. Steingass, 1352, says *mahtāb* is a kind of firework; and J. Shakespear, 2000, has “a kind of fireworks, blue lights”, he refers to *Qanoone Islam*, where *mahtāb* and *naqtī mahtāb* appear in the Appendix, p. lxiv, under fireworks.
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*Powder Magazines*. These were called *Bārūt-khānah*, see Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿĀlam-nāmah*, fol. 38b.
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*Pal-i-siyāh*. I find this expression twice at least in the *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn* (fols. 209b and 227a); “The *rahkalahs* were filled with *pal-i-siyāh*”, and it is thus either an explosive or a projectile. In another passage in the same work, 62b, the same word is used, where from the context it ought to mean a copper coin: *kharmuhrah, o pal-i-siyāh, o zar-i-sufed o zar-i-surkh*, i. e. a cowrie, a copper, silver coin, and gold coin. Steingass, 254, has *pul*, a small coin.
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*Badar*. I find this word used in the second of the above passages, *badarhāe-pal-i-siyāh*. It was thus something in which the *pal-i-siyāh* was contained. Is it *badrah*, a bag? (Steingass, 162).