The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13.30

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*.