The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c14: Chapter XII
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c14
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Chapter XII
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Of this arm of the service it is doubtful whether the Moghuls knew much before they descended into the plains of India under Bābar. What they did know was probably borrowed from the Turks and from Constantinople. Nor could the art and science of gunnery have been very advanced in India itself, when the Moghuls arrived in that country in the first half of the 16th century. In the earlier Moghul period, at any rate, the emperors were dependent for their artillery on the help and instruction of Rūmīs, that is, Mahomedans from Constantinople, or of Farangis, principally run-away sailors from Sūrat, or Portuguese half-castes (Horn, 29). Rūmī Khān was a well known officer of the first of these classes. Of either the real Europeans or their half-caste Portuguese substitutes, we find little or no mention. The Indian Mahomedans ignored as much as possible the services of the Christians and Europeans in their employment. Possibly this may have been due to the contempt which they really felt for Christian foreigners and their abhorrent ways. The slight consideration with which Mahomedan nobles treated Europeans, even those of some position, up to the middle of the 18th century, can be learnt from the statements in a letter written about that time by the celebrated Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau (R. O. Cambridge, “War”, Introduction, xxix, xxx). Similarly, Hājī Mustapha, a very acute observer, remarks about our early successes in Bengal, “But hear a Moghul, or read any of their relations, it seems that the whole revolution hangs on the Moghols themselves only, and if any mention at all is made of foreigners, it is only to hint that Jafer Ali Chan gave also his protection to a few hundred frenghees, headed by one Clive, whom the new Nabob and his party saved from imminent destruction”. (Dalrymple, “Or. Repertory”, ii, 217). The same feeling was shown by the governor of Orissa in 1633, when he insisted that Cartwright, an English trader, should kiss his foot, C. R. Wilson, “Early Annals”, i, 8.
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In spite of the almost complete silence of native authors, there is still evidence that up to the middle of the 18th century considerable bodies of Portuguese continued to be enlisted. For instance, we learn that Juliana d’Acosta, a Portuguese lady who held the office of matron of the harem, imported from Goa three hundred Portuguese, for most of whom she obtained employment (Gentil, “Mémoires”, p. 375). From the *Tārīkh-i-Muḥammadī* (year 1147 H.) we learn that “Julyā, a Farangi woman, a doctor and favourite of the deceased Shāh ʿĀlam (i. e. Bahādur Shāh) and of the reigning emperor, Mḥd Shāh, died at Dihlī in Rabīʿ i, 1147 (August 1734)”. Again, Father Tieffenthaler, a Jesuit priest from the Tyrol, spent about sixteen years between 1747 and 1764 as priest in charge of a community of Christians in the imperial service, who had settled down in the obscure town of Narwar, 108 miles south of Agrah, (Bernouilli, “Recherches sur l’Inde”, i, 175, and pp. 4, 5 of author’s preface).
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There are other scattered notices about Europeans employed in the artillery. Bernier, 217, (Horn, 32) says “But the artillerymen receive great pay, particularly all the Farangīs or Christians; Portugueze, English, Dutch, German, and French, fugitives from Goa and from the Dutch and English companies. Formerly, when the Moghols were little skilled in the management of artillery, the pay of the Europeans was more liberal, and there are still (1658) some remaining, who receive two hundred rupees a mouth, but now the king (ʿĀlamgīr) admits them with difficulty into the service and limits their pay to thirty two rupees" ¹. Bernier also mentions, 73, 93, that the garrison of Bakkar in Sind had, in 1658, artillerymen who were Portuguese, English, French and German. They had been entertained by Dārā Shukoh. And in describing the battle of Ḥasanpur in 1133 H. (1721) Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1015a, speaks of the "skilful Europeans" (*Farangiyān-i-chābuk-dast*) who worked the guns. Later again, in 1750, the principal artillery officer of Nāzir Jang, *ṣūbahdār* of the Dakhin, was an Irishman (Cambridge, "War", 67); We learn also from the *Ḥusain Shāhī*, fol. 34b, that in 1760-1 most of Sendhiah's gunners were Europeans (*Naṣārī-i-Farang*); and Gentil, "Mémoires", 285, asserts that at the battle of Katrah in 1774, Ḥāfiz Raḥmat Khān's artillery was commanded by a Spaniard. So late as 1815 the Nizām had some Portuguese artillerymen in his service. "They had a Portuguese who levelled each gun himself, and appeared to have the direction of the attack. If by chance a shot struck any part of the wall, so as to raise a dust, the air resounded with acclamations in praise of the old Portuguese, who seemed in no small degree flattered thereby" (Lake, "Sieges", 16, note).
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¹ See further on under *Aḥshām* for much lower rates, Rs. 8, 6¼, down to 5¼ a month. G. Careri, 244, copies the above passage, except that he interpolates a statement that the heavy artillery especially was in the hands of Frank or Christian gunners, and that the Europeans entered through Goa or absconded from warships.
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*Mīr Ātash*. At the head of the artillery was one of the great officers of state, the *Mīr Ātash* (Lord of Fire), or *Daroghah-i-topkhānah* (Superintendent of the Cannon department). Sometimes, as in Jahāndār Shāh's reign (1712), we read of two such officers, one at the head of all the artillery, and the other in special command of the light artillery attached to the emperor's person. These men were *manṣabdārs*, graded in the usual way according to their services or the favour in which they stood. But the rest of the men on the establishment of the imperial artillery were paid direct from imperial funds, and in this respect were treated differently from the main body of the army, which consisted almost entirely of cavalry, men dependent upon and paid by the chief under whose banner they enlisted. There were, as we know, some bodies of cavalry in direct pay of the emperor, such as the Aḥadīs, the Wālā Shāhī and so forth. But all the rest of the men so paid, matchlockmen, artillery-men and artificers, including such an unmilitary class as cotton-carders and such like, seem to have been lumped together under one head as Aḥshām. One point that these men had in common appears to have led to this incongruous classification. They were all borne on the imperial treasury pay-rolls, and paid direct therefrom as persons in the immediate employ of the emperor, and not entertained through any chief or manṣabdār, to whom their pay could be disbursed.
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The Mīr Ātash had grown into a most important officer; this is borne ont by Khushḥāl Chand’s remark, Berlin Ms., fol. 1133b, when Ṣafdar Jang was appointed on the 21st March 1744, that “contrary to former days, the artillery has become the most trusted and favoured corps in the army”. Involving as it did the command of the imperial artillery, which was always parked round the fortress or palace or the tents occupied by the emperor, this office carried with it the custody of the emperor’s person and the guarding of the palace gates and walls. (Seir ii, 373, note 170, and Ma‘lūmāt-ul-āfāq, fol. 79b).
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The Mīr Ātash seems to have performed for the officers and men under his command most of the duties belonging for the rest of the army to the Bakhshīs. He was aided in the execution of these duties by a Mushrif, or executive officer. The Mīr Ātash laid before the emperor all demands made on his department; all orders to it passed through him. He checked the pay bills and inspected the diaries of the Arsenal before sending them on to the Khānsāmān or Lord Steward. He saw to the postings of the artillery force, and received reports as to all losses and deficiencies. The agent at the head of the artillery pay-office was nominated by him. The descriptive rolls of artillery recruits passed through his hands, all new appointments and promotions were made on his initiative (Dastūr-ul-ʿAml, B.M. 1641, fols. 23b—27b).
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In dealing with artillery, the subject falls naturally under three heads, 1) Manufacture, 2) Artillery in use, 3) Arsenals or Magazines. It is doubtful how far in later times the Mīr Ātash was concerned in the casting of guns or the provision of stores. The Top-khānah was classed as one of the workshops, or kārkhānajāt, belonging to the Imperial Household, which were in charge of the imperial Khānsāmān, or Lord Steward; and as Dāroghah of the Topkhānah, used in this sense, the Mīr Ātash must have been a subordinate of the Lord Steward. But in course of time, as the artillery branch developed, the office of Mīr Ātash grew in importance, until he was the equal or more than the equal of his nominal superior, the Khānsāmān, and as commander of the artillery in use he must have been wholly independent of that official.
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In earlier days, judging from passages in Bābar’s memoirs, a Mīr Ātash was supposed to supervise the casting of cannon. Ustād Qulī Khān, Bābar’s Mīr Ātash, is described as taking an active part in the founding of a large cannon at Āgrah. I doubt if this was the practice in later reigns; I fancy that the cannon-foundry and ordnance store department fell more completely into the hands of the Khānsāmān and his officers, while the Mīr Ātash confined himself more exclusively to his purely military duties. As for arsenals, magazines, or store-houses of cannon and the other requisites pertaining thereto, these were under neither the Khānsāmān nor the Mīr Ātash. All reserve artillery and stores were kept in certain great fortresses, such as Āgrah, Dihlī and Lāhor, in the charge of the special commandant (qilaʿhdār), who was an officer appointed direct from court and in no way connected with or subordinate to the provincial governor (nāzim or ṣūbahdār).
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Hazārī. The word hazārī often appears in histories, and from the context I have found that it means an officer of artillery, generally of garrison artillery. The equivalent may be taken to be our rank of captain. Hazārī is, of course, the same word as that used for one of the ranks (manṣabs), which we have detailed earlier in this work. But the two things intended by the one word could not have been the same. A manṣabdār of 1000 was a officer of high, or at any rate of considerable, rank; while Hazārīs are spoken of in the plural in a way to show that they were numerous and of no great consideration.
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Some writers, Mīrzā Muḥammad, for instance, in his Tārīkh-i-Muḥammadī, invariably use for an artillery officer the word mink-bāshī where others use Hazārī. Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿAlam-nāmah, fol. 64a, also uses that word. Kām Rāj, Āʿzam-ul-ḥarb, fol. 120b, uses both Mink-bāshī and Hazārī in the same sentence. The two are equivalent in meaning, for mink-bāshī is the Turkish for “Commander of 1000” (mink, 1000, bāsh, head), See Horn, 14, 136, (Taimūr’s Ordinances, Davy and White, 231). Of course, this and the other Turkish terms for commanders of various ranks must have been known to and used by the Moghuls up to the time that Bābar conquered India. But it does not seem as if the Turkish words passed into the official nomenclature of Hindūstān. In that country all the ranks (manṣab) were known by their Persian aud not by their Chaghatāe Turkish names. Apparently the Āīn-i-Akbarī (at least, judging from Blochmann’s translation) makes no use of the word Mink-bāshī. From this I infer that the word came into India with the Turks from Constantinople, who were the chiefs and leaders in the Indian artillery during the earlier Moghul period. As the services of these and of Europeans, who were also employed, were much prized, they may have been accorded at first the rank of commander of 1000 (i. e. *mink-bāshī* or *hazārī*), and although, as the Indians themselves grew more familiar with the working of artillery, the estimation and market value of an artillery officer diminished, the original name of *Hazārī* or *Mink-bāshī* may have stuck to the office, after the rank denoted thereby had ceased to belong to it. This designation of *Hazārī* explains the epithet in Blacker, “War”, 340, applied to the Mahratta *qila‘hdār* or commandant of Mandlak (Central India), viz. Ṣāḥib Rāe Hazārī, or as Blacker spells it, Hazeree. Possibly also Pogson’s “Lulloo Hoozooree”, commandant of Ajaigarh in Bundelkhand, ought to be *Hazārī* (“Hist. of the Boondelas”, 135).
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*Ṣadīwāl*, *Mirdahah*, *Sāir*. These names follow those of the *Hazārī* in all the official manuals, and may be taken as equivalent to lieutenant, sergeant, and privates. The etymologies are P. *ṣadī*, group of 100, *wāl* H. affix for man, person, possessor; *mir* contraction of P. *mīr*, lord, master, *dahah*, a group of 10; *sāir* P. the rest, remainder, the others, i. e. the common gunners, (Davy and White, “Institutes”, 232). Kām Rāj, *Āẓam-ul-ḥarb*, fol. 120*b*, has the form *ṣadīdār*.
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*Golandāz*. When gunners are specifically named this is the designation they receive, and in the Manuals they appear among the *Aḥshām*. *Golandāz* literally “ball-thrower”, is derived from P. *gol*, ball, and *andāz*, the root of P. *andākhtan*, to throw. We do not know how many men were attached to each gun and it must have varied a good deal, but Horn, 27, suggests sixteen as the average number, by inference from a passage in the *Tuzuk-i-Jahāngīrī* (Lowe, 18, line 9). Aḥmad Abdālī had two men to each *shāhīn* or falconet (Horn, 28, Elliot viii, 398). From Mīrzā Ḥaidar’s account of Humāyūn’s artillery in 1540, it is inferred by Horn, 29, that there was then an average of seven men to a gun (Elias and Ross, 375?).
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*Deg-andāz*. These were the men who had charge of and used the *deg*, which I have mentioned under the head of Heavy Artillery. The name is literally “Pot-thrower”, P. *deg*, a pot, and *andāz*, throwing. I am not certain whether this means that they had charge of mortars, called *deg*, or whether they used hand-grenades. The latter would be more near the literal meaning, and I do not think that mortars were at all common in India until introduced by Europeans after the middle of the 18th century. A passage in Fitzclarence, 246, seems to bear out my interpretation of *Deg* and *Degandāz*. He says “at times they have recourse to thick earthen-ware pots with fuses and full of powder, the pieces of which wounded dreadfully”.
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*Bān-andāz*, *Bān-dār*. As these “Rocket-throwers” or “Rocket-holders” are rated separately in the official books, it must be inferred that they existed as a separate body.