The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c13.8

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.