The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c15.7

c15.7

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".