The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13.1

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.