The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13.26

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.