The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c15: Chapter XIII. Ahshām
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c15
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Chapter XIII. Ahshām
c15.2
The *Ahshām* is the heading under which the later native writers place all connected with the army, who were neither *manṣabdārs*, *tābīnān*, nor *aḥadis*. I retain the heading, with one change only; I place the artillery by themselves, as of sufficient importance for separate treatment.
c15.3
In the *Āīn*, i, 251—254, there is a chapter headed *Piyādagān* which corresponds generally to the *Ahshām* of the later books. Under the same head as Akbar's 12,000 matchlockmen, who are the only men in the group at all entitled to be reckoned as soldiers, come the doorkeepers, the palace guards, the letter carriers and spies, the swordsmen, wrestlers, slaves, litter-bearers, carpenters, water-carriers and so forth. In the *Āīn*, i, 254, there is a class of troops called *Dākhilī* (extra, additional) which seems no longer to have existed in *‘Ālamgīr’s* reign, at least the name has dropped out of the official manuals.
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The vague word *Ahshām* (Steingass, 21, A, pl. of *Hasham*) is defined in the dictionary as servants, domestics, followers, attendants, retainers, a kind of militia or armed police. In the official manuals (*Dastūr-ul-ʿAml*) it comprehends the infantry, the personnel of the artillery, the artificers, and the attendants on the court. The incident of service which was common to all these men, and caused their inclusion under one head, was the fact that they were all borne direct on the imperial books, and received their pay from the imperial treasury, without the intervention of a *manṣabdar*. This fact also accounts for Abul Fazl's apparently anomalous classification of the artillery as part of the Household in Book i of the *Āīn*, instead of with the rest of the army in Book ii, *Āīn* 1 to 10. I have also found *Ahshām* used with three more restricted meanings: 1) The light artillery which attended the emperor's person wherever he went were called the *Ahshām* (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 5*b*). This artillery is described by Gemelli Carreri, French ed., iii, 244, and by Bernier, 217, 363, who calls it "artillery of the stirrup" (i. e. *rikāb*); 2) the word *Ahshām* is used constantly in the 18th century for the gunners of the garrison artillery; and 3) we find *Ahshām* used as a general term for petty zamindārs serving in any campaign, and the half-armed militia or levies which they brought in their train. Khāfī Khān, ii, 953, names the *dāroghah-i-ahshām* separately, between the *mīr ātash* and the *dāroghah-i-top-khānah-i-jinsī*, which would make the *Ahshām* something distinct from both the artillery generally and the light artillery.
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*Infantry*. As already stated, this arm of the service held a very inferior position and was of little or no consideration (Bernier, 219). Writing about 1760, and referring more particularly to the south, De la Flotte, 258, says that the less numerous body gave way at the first meeting, especially infantry before cavalry; "nay, seldom would 50,000 infantry stand before 20,000 cavalry". Another observer, Orme, "Hist. Frag.", 417, says the infantry consisted in a multitude of people assembled together without regard to rank or file: some with swords and targets, who could never stand the shock of a body of horse; some bearing matchlocks, which in the best of order can produce but a very uncertain fire: some armed with lances, too long or too weak to be of any service, even if ranged with the utmost regularity of discipline. Little reliance was placed on them. To keep night watches and to plunder defenceless people was their greatest service, except their being a perquisite to their commanders, who received a fixed sum for every man, and hired every man at a different and less price. In short, the infantry were more a rabble of half-armed men than anything else, being chiefly levies brought into the field by petty zamindars, or men belonging to the jungle tribes. Any Mahomedan or Rajput, who respected himself, managed somehow or other to provide himself with a mount and obtained enrolment as a cavalry soldier, who was in popular estimation a gentleman. The high figures for Infantry in each district and province, shown in volume ii of the *Āīn-i-Akbarī*, can only be accepted under considerable reservation. These numbers can only represent the men called on to render strictly local duty, and they must have consisted almost entirely of villagers armed with long pikes, or swords and shields, perhaps even with only an iron-bound bambu staff (*lāthī*).
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Bernier tells us, 217, that the foot soldiers received the smallest pay: "and to be sure, the musketeers cut a sorry figure at the best of times, which may be said to be when squatting on the ground and resting their muskets on a kind of wooden fork which hangs to them. Even then they are terribly afraid of burning their eyes or their long heards, and above all least some *jinn*, or evil spirit, should cause the bursting of their musket. Some have twenty rupees a month, some fifteen, some ten". And again, 219, (a passage copied almost word for word by Gemelli Careri, iii, 244); "I have said that the infantry was inconsiderable. I do not think that in the army immediately about the king the infantry can exceed 15,000, including musketeers, foot-artillery, and generally every person connected with that artillery. From this an estimate may be formed of the number of infantry in the provinces. I cannot account for the prodigious amount of infantry with which some people swell the armies of the Great Mogol, otherwise than by supposing that with the fighting men they confound servants, sutlers, tradesmen, and all those individuals belonging to bazars or markets, who accompany the troops. Including these followers, I can well conceive that the army immediately about the king's person, particularly when it is known that he intends to absent himself some time from his capital, may amount to two or even three hundred thousand infantry. This will not be an extravagant computation, if we bear in mind the immense quantity of tents, kitchens, baggage, furniture, and even women, usually attendant on the army".
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Nāgas. These bodies of so-called Hindu devotees were common in the armies of the 18th century, and I believe that to this day the Rājah of Jaipur entertains a large number of them. There was a corps of them in the Audh service from about 1752 to the end of the century. The last leader of these was Rajah Himmat Bahādur, whose name appears so frequently in our own early connection with Bundelkhand (Pogson, "Boondelahs", 119—122, Francklin, "George Thomas", 364, 365). With this exception the Mahomedans do not seem to have retained any of these fakīrs in their employ. Anquetil Duperron "Zend Avesta", I, lxxv, describes a body of these armed vagabonds, numbering some 6000 men, that he met in 1757 on their way to Jagannāth. The three leaders marched first, a long pike in one hand and a buckler in the other. The main body was armed with swords, bows and matchlocks. Hāji Mustapha, during his adventurous attempt in 1758 to reach Masulipatam viâ Western Bengal and Pachet, came across five thousand of these devotees on their way to the Ganges at Sāgar; "they are all of them tall, stout, well-limbed men, in general stark naked, but very well armed" (Dalrymple's "Oriental Repertory", ii, 239). A description of a corps of these Nāgās commanded by a disciple (chela) of Himmat Bahādur, and then in the employ of Daulat Rāo, Sendhiah, well be found in Broughton, "Letters", 96, 104, 106, 123. Blacker, "War", 22, says the "Gossyes" i. e. Gusāins or Nāgās, "have always been considered good troops".
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*ʿAlighol*. In the later years we find a class of troops known as *ʿAlighol*, who from one passage (Fraser, “Skinner”, ii, 75, 76) would seem to have been the equivalent of the *ghāzis*, as we now style them, so frequently heard of on our Afghān frontier. Fraser defines them as “a sort of chosen light infantry of the Rohilla Patans: sometimes the term appears to be applied to other troops supposed to be used generally for desperate service”. They are also mentioned in V. Blacker, “War”, 23. W. H. Tone, 50, makes out the *ʿAlighol* to be one of the divisions of the Nezib (*Najīb*).
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*Silaḥ-posh*. In 1799 the Jaipur Rājah had a body-guard of sixteen hundred men, armed with matchlocks and sabres, who were called the *silaḥposh*, no doubt from their being clad in armour (Francklin, “George Thomas”, 165).
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*Najīb*. The word means literally “noble”, and Blacker, “War”, 22, tells us they were irregular infantry, who disdained uniform and carrying a musket, their arms being a matchlock, or blunderbuss, and a sword. They disdained to stand sentry or do any fatiguing duty, considering it their only business to fight and to protect the person of their prince. W. H. Tone, 50, says that long practice had enabled them to load with sufficient readiness, while their matchlock carried farther and infinitely truer than the firelock of those days. The Najībs was also excellent swordsmen.
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With regard to the Najībs in the Nawāb of Oudh’s service in 1780, Captain Thomas Williamson, 124, tells us that they were clothed in blue vests and drawers, furnishing their own arms and ammunition (matchlock, sword, shield, bow and arrows). Their discipline was very contemptible; they answered very well for garrison duty, but could not stand the charge of cavalry, having no bayonets, while their arms were totally unfit for prompt execution. As for the Nawāb’s troops organized in imitation of the E. I. Company’s battalions, they were, even on actual service, nothing but "food for powder". Such as had bayonets had no locks: those that had hammers to their locks, had no cock, or at any rate the flints were wanting. Such ammunition and cartridges as there were had, through damp and time, become so incorporated with the wooden pouch-blocks, that when touched the tops came off, leaving the powder and ball a fixture. A battalion of Najībs could with ease cut to atoms half a dozen of those mock regiments.
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Pathabāz. The author of the *Husain Shāhī* (written in 1212 H., 1797-8) mentions, fol. 34*b*, that in 1760-1 Sendhiah had several thousand Pathābāz, "a word which in the idiom of the Dakhin is applied to courageous men and expert swordsmen". They received their name, no doubt, from their weapon, the *patta* or straight rapier (see ante p. 77).
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Dhalait. This Hindī word (Platts, 572), meaning literally "shield bearer", I have met with in three writers. Ashob applies it to one of the three foot soldiers who followed Sa‘ud-dīn Khān, the Mīr Ātash, when forced in 1151 H. (1738), much against his will, to accompany Nādir Shāh's general of artillery into the streets of Dihli, to put the inhabitants to the sword. This Dhalait was sent as a messenger to carry a note to the Wazir, Qamr-ud-dīn Khān, (Ashob, fol. 256*b*). The word is also found in *Tārīkh-i-ʿĀlamgīr Sānī*, fol. 136*a*, referring to the year 1170 H. (1756-7); and in the *Tahmās-nāmah* of Miskīn, fol. 49*a*.
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Amazons. At the end of the 18th century the Nizām at Haidarābād had two battalions of female sepoys, of one thousand each, which mounted guard in the interior of the palace, and accompanied the ladies of his family whenever they moved. They were with the Nizām during the war against the Mahrattas in 1795, and at the battle of Kurdlah did not behave worse than the rest of his army. They were dressed as our sepoys used to be, and performed the French drill with tolerable precision. The corps was called the *Zafar-paltan* or victorious battalion, and the women *gārdanī*, a corruption of the word “guard”¹. The pay was five rupees a month (Blacker, 213, note). This Nizām seems to have had a penchant for female warriors. Möor, “Narrative”, 117, tells us of an Italian lady, a dancer, who so entranced him, that he conferred on her a title and placed a battalion under her command. She now learnt the manual exercise and evidently took her military position *au grand sérieux*. Soon afterwards a foreign male dancer arrived, and the lady was directed to appear in *ā pas de deux*. Full of her new dignity, she objected; and as the Nizām insisted, she resigned her command and retired to Poona.
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¹ Or perhaps better, “guard” plus the feminine termination *anī*.
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*Sihbandī*. This was the name for the armed men entertained by local officers when engaged in collecting the land revenue (*Dastūr-ul-ʿAml*, B.M. 6598, fol. 48*b*). Colonel Sir R. C. Temple (“Calcutta Review”, Oct. 1896, p. 406) in an article on the Andaman Sibandi Corps, suggests that this word found its way into Anglo-Indian use from Madras, and that originally it was unknown in Northern India. This opinion seems untenable in the face of the authority above quoted, which belongs to Northern India and is not later than ʿĀlamgīr (1658—1707). The word is also used for local levies by Dānishmand Khān, *Bahādur Shāh-nāmah* (entry of the 12th Shabān 1120 H. = 26th October 1708). Or we may go still farther back, to the year 932 H. (1526), when we find it applied by Bābar to the Indian levies of Ibrāhīm Lodī. See the *Bābarnāmah*, lithographed text, 174; the *bedhindī* of Pavet de Courteille, ii, 163, is an obvious misreading.
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*Barqandāz*. This name (literally *barq*, lightening, *andāz*, thrower), which came to be the commonest name for a foot soldier using a musket, appears rarely, if at all, in earlier writings, unless as a mere metaphor. An early use of it as a name for a matchlock man is found in *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, 209*b*, (c. 1147 H.).
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*Matchlockmen, Rates of pay.* The following table shows the rates of pay for the various classes of the matchlockmen; it may be presumed, perhaps, that the mounted men were in the position of officers, or were perhaps what we should call mounted infantry. First we have the pay of the regular matchlockmen (*Bandūqchī-i-jangī* or *Tufang-chī*) who were either Baksariyahs or Bundelahs. Of these some drew rates of pay specially fixed, and entered in the official diary at the time when they were entertained (*hukmī*). The usual rates, which every one else got, were as follows:
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| CLASS. | RANK. | *Qadīmī* (OLD). | *Jadīdī* (NEW). |
| *Suwār*, (mounted). | *Hazārī Duaspah* (two horsed). | Rs. 45, 40, 32 | Rs. 40, 35 |
| | Id. *Yakaspah* (one horsed). | Rs. 22, 20, 17½ | Rs. 20, 17½ |
| *Piyādah*, (foot). | *Sadī-wāl.* | Rs. 9 | Rs. 8 |
| | *Mirdahah.* | Rs. 8 | Rs. 7 |
| | *Sā’ir* (the rest). | Rs. 6, 5½, 5 | Rs. 6½ | Cash Rs. 6, and conditional *jāgīr*, 8 annas. |
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Akbar's rates for these men, *Āīn*, i, 116, work out as follows:
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| CLASS. | 1st GRADE. | 2nd GRADE. | 3rd GRADE. | 4th GRADE. | 5th GRADE. |
| *Mirdahah*s | Rs. 7½ | Rs. 7 | Rs. 6¾ | Rs. 6½ | |
| | 1st 2nd 3rd | 1st 2nd 3rd | 1st 2nd 3rd | 1st 2nd 3rd | 1st 2nd 3rd |
| Others Rs. | 6¼ 6 5¾ | 5½ 5¼ 5 | 4¾ 4½ 4¼ | 4 3¾ 3½ | 3¼ 3 2¾ |
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The later rates for the *Mirdahah*s would thus appear to have been a little higher than those first fixed; those for the common soldiers, on the whole, much higher.
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There are some words which occur in the above which call for some explanation:
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Baksariyah is a curious word, and suggests to us at its origin the town of Baksar on the Ganges in the Bhojpūr country. The region is one which still supplies from its Rājput and Bhūinhār clans the stalwart clubmen of the zamīndārs in Bengal proper, the door-keepers of private houses in Calcutta, and many of the finest sepoys in our Hindūstānī regiments. Bhojpur shared with Audh the supply of men to our native army in Bengal from its earliest to its latest days, that is, from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century. That these men crowded to our standards, as soon as the Company began to raise an army, was due, no doubt, to their having already been accustomed, for generations, to serve as matchlockmen and gunners in the army of our predecessors, the Moghuls. When in 1756 Calcutta was threatened by Sirāj-ud-Daulah and preparations for defence were made, we find that “the number of Buxeries” (i. e. Baksariyahs), “or Indian matchlockmen, was therefore augmented to 1500”. (Orme, Mil. Trans., ii, 59). See also the Glossary prefixed to an Address to the Proprietors of East India Stock (J. Z. Holwell’s India Tracts, 3d ed. 1774), — “Buckserias — foot soldiers whose common arms are sword and target only”.
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The connection between the Baksariyahs of the army and the town of Baksar in Bahār was evidently a matter of common belief and acceptance. In the Chahār Gulshan of Rāe Chatarman (my copy, fol. 127b), written in 1173 H. (1759), in the itinerary from Rāe Barelī to Paṭnah, when the author comes to Baksar, he adds “original home-country of the Baksariyahs” (aṣl waṭn-i-Baksariyah-hā). It is strange that they should have been known by the name of the town rather than by that of the subdivision of the country, that is, parganah Bhojpur, sirkār Ruḥtās, Ṣūbah Bahār (Āīn, ii, 157). We call them nowadays Bhojpurīs and not Baksariyah. In the historians belonging to the 18th century, I find that the men of the garrison artillery are usually designated Baksariyah.
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Bundelahs. Bundelahs are, of course, the Rajput clan whose home is in the country south of the Jamnah and east of the Betwah river (J. Rennell, “Memoir of a Map...”, p. 234, but for the northern limit read Jamnah instead of Ganges). Their appearance in this list shows that originally they were held to be an inferior class of troops, and employed principally as matchlockmen. They were always renowned, however, for their bravery. In the end, through the rise of the Orchhah rajah, the head of their clan, and that of the so-called Dhangyā State, formed by Champat Rāe and extended by his more famous son, Chattarsāl, their position was much enhanced, and during the 18th century they played an extremely prominent part, fighting first on the side of the Moghuls and subsequently against them.
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Arabs. In later times, in the Dakhin at any rate, the best infantry were held to be the Arabs, who received higher pay than others. They received Rs. 12 a mouth, while the lowest pay was only Rs. 5 a mouth. The Arabs were in general fully to be depended on, but particularly so in the defence of walls (Blacker, “War”, 21).
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Other classes under this general head of Aḥshām were Bhīlah, Mewātī, Karnātakī, Mughal (B.M. 1641, fol. 59b, 60a). For a mention of Bhīlah and Karnātakī in 1133 H. (1721), see Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1013b.
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The golandāz (golah, ball, andāz, thrower) or artilleryman, the Degandāz (deg, pot, andāz, thrower) and the Bāndār (bān, rocket, dār, holder) are included in this section, but I have classed them under the head of Artillery. In one battle, that against ʿAbdullah Khān, Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1013b, speaks of certain men immediately around the emperor’s elephant as qurqchis, there being two kinds, those in yellow and those in red. The word, an unusual one in Indian works, is defined by Steingass as “a gamekeeper, a sentinel over the women’s apartments”.
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*Bhīlah*. These were men of the wild tribe whose home is in the rugged country between Ajmer and Gujarāt. They are described by an 18th century writer, (Anand Rām, Mukhliṣ, *Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 184*b*) as being in their own country nothing but highway robbers and skilful hunters, wearing clothes mostly of leaves. Their principal weapon, whieh no doubt they brought with them when in the emperor’s service, was the long bow of bambu called *kamanth*, which has been already described (p. 95).
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*Mewātī*. These men are further designated *Tīr-andāz* (archers, lit. “arrow throwers”). Mewāt is the hilly country south and west of the Jamnah, between Agrah and Dihlī (J. Rennell, “Memoir”, cxx). It derives its name from the tribe inhabiting it, the Meos. In the *Āīn*, i, 252, the men from Mewāt are called Mewrahs, and they are described as post-runners and spies. Neither the name nor these duties seem to have belonged to the Mewātīs in the 18th century; though *mewrah* had survived as a name for a post-runner of any kind. From Mewāt, the name of the country, comes the word Mewātī, an inhabitant of Mewāt. They are now Mahomedans and were famed, until our time, for their turbulence. Their depredations made the imperial highway from Āgrah to Dihlī, viâ Mathurā, at all times unsafe; and it was necessary to travel in large parties, or to hire armed men, who were probably themselves Mewātīs, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. A good description of the state of things about 1710 will be seen in Yār Muḥammad’s *Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, p. 130, 131. The E. I. Company’s envoy, Mr. John Surman, who travelled this way to Court in June 1715, mentions in his diary that at Āgrah they were forced to hire an armed guard for their protection (Orme Collections, p. 1694, under date of June 8th).
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*Karnātakī*. These must have been men from the south of India, the word Karnātak by the Moghul usage applying to the whole of peninsular India south of the Tungahbhadra, except Adonī (J. Rennell, “Memoir” (Peninsula), 20). I suppose these men in the Moghul army were of the same class as those who formed our first sepoy battalions in the south of India. In Northern India, which they reached in 1757 as part of Clive’s force sent for the relief of Calcutta, they were known as Talingahs, that is, men of the Talagū country; and Talingah is still the common village word in Hindūstān for a sepoy in one of our regiments. De la Flotte, 258, who served in South India from 1758 to 1760, says the infantry (no doubt the same men as these Karnātakīs) carried on their heads a bundle of rice and their cooking utensils, their women carrying the husband’s sword and other arms. Those were a very long and heavy matchlock called kaitoke (ante, p. 107). The whole family followed.
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Kālā Piyādah. Kāmwar Khān (Ms. of the Royal Asiatic Society, Morley’s Catalogue No. 97) when speaking of the army led against Nizām-ul-Mulk by Mubāriz Khān, ṣūbahdār of Ḥaidarābād, says there were in it 30,000 matchlockmen of the Dakhin known as Kālā piyādah, (lit. “black foot-soldiers”). These if not identical with, must have been very similar to the Karnātakī.
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Rāwat. This is a name which in Northern India indicates generally any respectable Hindu landholder who is not of very high caste. Mahomedan writers not infrequently apply it to the general body of Mahrattah soldiery, most of whom were of the kūnbi caste, for which such an epithet would be appropriate. It is applied in this sense by the author of the Ḥusain-shāhī to 12,000 men, who served in Sendhiah (Scindiah) Paṭel’s army during the campaign ending in the battle of Pānīpat (1760—1761).
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Bargi. Another general name used by some writers, when speaking of the Mahrattah soldiery, is Bargī. See Ma’āṣiru-l-umarā, iii, 740, line 17, and J. Shakespear “Dict.” 319;
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its use is also referred to in Grant Duff, 37. I do not know the etymology of this word.
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*Mughal*. As to these men I can suggest no reason for their appearance in this list of men serving in the infantry, but it is curious to find that there were any Mughals, who would deign to serve in this inferior branch of the service.
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*Farangi*. These must have been Europeans serving in the capacity of common soldiers. They were probably for the most part native Christians, or so-called Portuguese, either from Goa, or from the colonies of that nation settled about the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmputra. There may have been among them some fugitive sailors from ships lying at Surat or Cambay. More usually, however, such men entered the artillery. Ashob, fol. 266*a*, informs us that in 1739 there were still Franks in the Mughal service. They were all Frenchmen, either attached to the artillery or practising as surgeons, bone-setters (*shikastah-band*), or physicians. The chief of them, Farangī Khān and Farāshīsh Khān, were accounted nobles and drew nobles' pay. These Europeans lived in a special quarter called Farangīpurah just outside the Kābul gate, close under the hill Kālī Pahār. They killed some of Nādir Shāh's provosts (*nasaqchī*) and in retaliation the colony was wiped out.
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*Pay*. The pay of the classes above enumerated is given as follows (B.M. 1641, fol. 59*b*, 60*a*). The word *sāir*, which I would render "private soldier", will be found used in that sense in the Institutes of Taimur, Davy and White, 232, سائر سپاہ, "common soldiers".
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| NAME. | MOUNTED (*Suwār*). | FOOT (*Piyādah*). | REMARKS. |
| | HAZARI DUASPAH. | SADIWAL YAKASPAH. | SADIWAL. | MIRDAHAH. | SA,IR. | |
| | Rs. | Rs. | Rs. | R. a. p. | R. a. p. | |
| Bhīlah | 52 | 26 | 10 | 8 12 0 | 6 4 0 | Formerly they received rations, but no pay in cash. |
| Mewātī | 50 | 25 | — | 4 8 0 | 4 0 0 | Receiving rations. |
| " | — | — | 8 | 6 0 0 | 5 0 0 | Without rations. |
| Karnātākī | 50 | 25 | — | 7 0 0 | 5 0 0 | |
| | | | | 6 0 0 | 4 8 0 | |
| Mughul | — | — | — | 8 0 0 | 7 0 0 | |
| | | | | | 6 8 0 | |
| Farangī | — | according to order | 8 | 6 4 0 | 6 0 0 | |
| | | | | | 5 12 0 | |
| | | | | | 5 8 0 | |
| | | | | | 5 4 0 | |
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Bernier, 217, gives the pay of foot soldiers at Rs. 20, 15, and 10 a month, and the pay of Farangīs as Rs. 22 a month. Rations, when issued to the above men, were as follows: Flour (*ārad*), 1¼ sir, Split peas (*dāl*) ¾ sir, Salt (*namāk*) ¾ of a *dām*, ghi (*roghan-i-zard*), 2 *dāms*.
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Artificers, or other men classed under Infantry. Of these there were a number, artisans and labourers, who can scarcely be designated soldiers at all; they were really camp-followers, though they may possibly have carried some sort of weapons for their own protection, just as we furnish litter-bearers with swords when on active service. The *Beldārs* were used to make difficult roads passable (Horn, 24, *‘Alamgīr-nāmah*, 653); they also threw up the field-works usually made to protect the guns. One duty of the carpenters and axemen was to cut a road through the thorny jungle with which most petty strongholds were surrounded. The use of some of the others, as bearing on the service of the army, are obvious enough; others, less so. Dr. Horn, 24, seems to translate *beldār* by “beilträger”, a word meaning, I believe, an axeman. But *bel* is a spade, hoe, or mattock, and a *beldār* is a digger up of earth, an excavator, not an axeman.
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The following table gives the names and pay of some of these artificers (B.M., 1641, fol. 60*b*). Many of the words I am unable to make out.
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| NAME. | CLASS. | REMARKS. |
| PERSIAN. | ENGLISH. | SUWĀR. YAKASPAH. | PIYĀDAH. | |
| *Kahardah Turānī* | — | Rs. 40 | Rs. 14, 11, 7 | |
| * " Hindustānī* | — | (as ordered) | Rs. 8, 7, 6, 5½ | |
| *دوب رغب* | — | (as ordered) | Rs. 15 | |
| *Najjār* | Carpenters | (as ordered) | Rs. 8, 7, 5 | |
| *Basali* | — | — | Rs. 10 | An armourer? Steing. 187, *Basal*, an iron helmet. |
| *Āhangar* | Blacksmiths | — | Rs. 6½, 6½, 6 | *Musufi* (double?) Rs. 9¾ |
| *Dhūnah* | Cotton-carders | — | Rs. 6 | |
| *Badaha* | — | — | Rs. 6, 5 | |
| *Sahalki* | — | — | Rs. 8, 7 | |
| *Khor bahliyah* | — | — | Qadim, Rs. 9 Usual, Rs. 8, 7 | *Baheliyah*, a bird snarer? |
| *Sang-tarāsh* | Stone masons | — | Rs. 8, 7, 6 | |
| *Mochī* | Leather workers | — | Rs. 8 | |
| *Atashbāz* | Firework makers | — | Rs. 7, 6, 5 | |
| *Kharātī* | Turners | — | Rs. 7 | |
| *Ārah-kash* | Sawyers | — | Rs. 6 | |
| *Beldār* | Diggers | — | (blank) | |
| *Naqb-kun* | Miners | Rs. 20, 17 | Rs. 4¾, 4½, 4 | |
| *Tabrdār* | Axemen | — | Mirdahah, Rs. 5½ Private, Rs. 4¼ | |
| *Sālotrī* | Farriers | Rs. 15 | | |