The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c15.24

c15.24

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”.