The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c16: Chapter XIV
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c16
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Chapter XIV
c16.1
Horn, 51—56, includes elephants in his account of the fighting force. But long before the Moghul empire fell into decay, they had become principally beasts of burden or means of display, and their rôle in the day of battle was comparatively insignificant.
c16.2
Akbar seems to have made much use of elephants, bringing them into the field in great numbers (Horn, 51, 52, 53). In his time they carried on their backs musketeers or archers. This practise seems to have soon ceased. But as late as 1131 H. (Nov.-Dec. 1718) and Muḥarram 1133 (November 1720) we hear of their being used to carry small cannon. Thus Sayyad Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān, when he re-entered Dihlī on his return from the Dakhin, had forty gajnāl elephants, which each carried two soldiers and two pieces, *Jauhar-i-Ṣamṣām*, Fuller’s translation, fol. 50. Again, when ʿAbdullah Khān, Qutb-ul-Mulk, was made prisoner at the battle of Ḥasanpur, a gajnāl elephant was ordered up, and seated on it the prisoner was carried before Muḥammad Shāh (*Jauhar-i-Ṣamṣām*, fol. 158a, and Fuller’s trans., fol. 76).
c16.3
To the last some elephants protected by armour were brought into the battle-field. But their use was confined almost entirely to carrying the generals or great nobles, and displaying their standards. The baggage elephants were assembled in the rear with those bearing the harem, the women remaining mounted on the latter during the battle, and protected by a strong force posted round them.
c16.4
In the day of battle elephants were provided with armour, called *pākhar*, *Āīn*, i, 129, N°. 21. This was made of steel and consisted of separate pieces for the head and trunk. In one place, *Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, 2186, I find the epithet *bargustuwān-posh* applied to armour-clad elephants. Again Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah*, 34*b*, applies the word *kājim* to elephant armour in general, and defines *bargustuwān*, as a protective covering adjusted on the trunk of an elephant when going into battle. The rest of the complicated gear used in connection with elephants is set out in detail in the *Āīn*, i, 125—130. Besides their own armour, the riding elephants carried on the day of battle an armour-plated, canopied seat, called an *ʿimārī*, of which the sides were some three feet high. The prince or noble took his seat in this, and was thus protected with the exception of his head and shoulders from all distant attack (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, 207*b*). We are told by Haji Mustapha, *Seir*, ii, 301, note 140, that the *ʿimārī* and the *haudah* (or *Haudaj*) “are different, the former has a canopy and is used for travelling or for purposes of state, the latter has no cover and is employed in war”. Or again, in other places, i, 33, note 41, and i, 337, note 283, he says the *haudah* is made of boards strengthened with iron, having the shape of an octagonal platform, with sides eighteen inches high. In war time the sides were raised to two feet, and were then covered with iron or brass plates. It was divided into two unequal parts; in the forepart, about three fourths of it, a man may easily sit with his pillows and cushions, or upon a stretch, two men. The hind part held one man, and that with difficulty. He adds that when “covered with a canopy it is called an *amhari* and is not used in the field”. This last statement cannot be accepted, as all the historians speak of the seat used in war as an *ʿimārī*, عماری. Moor, “Narrative”, in his glossary under Amhara says that a seat with a canopy was so called, and without a canopy it was a *haudah*. “It (the canopy) is generally made of Europe scarlet cloth and embroidered, and sometimes has a golden or silver urn or some such ornament on the top. Mahomedans prefer a crescent”.
c16.5
The object of mounting the general or commander on an elephant was that he might be seen from a distance by all the troops. For in those days battles were nearly always decided by the fate of the leader. If he was killed or disappeared, the army gave up the contest and in a very short space of time melted away altogether. Nādir Shāh wondered at this Indian habit of mounting the general on an elephant: “What strange practice is this that the rulers of Hind have adopted? In the day of battle they ride on an elephant, and make themselves into a target for everybody! (*Malāḥat-i-maqāl* of Rāo Dalpat Singh, fol. 54*b*). The criticism seems to have been taken to heart. For Miskīn, fol. 43*a*, tells us that Mu‘īn-ul-mulk, governor of Lāhor (1748—1754), declared that a general on an elephant was like a prisoner in the midst of his guards, and a mere target for the enemy. The next time that he fought Aḥmad, Durrānī, he meant to ride a horse. In other ways, too, the elephants were sometimes of more harm than benefit. If wounded, they were liable to get beyond control and escape at the top of their speed. In one instance, in a battle near Lāhor in 1124 H. (March 1712), a wounded elephant rushed off with ‘Azīm-ush-shān, son of Bahādur Shāh, and jumping off the high bank into the river Rāvi drowned himself, and the wounded prince along with him.
c16.6
Elephants were also used to batter in the gates of fortified places. It is for this reason that such gates are generally found protected by metal plates and spikes. To counteract these, the elephant was again, in its turn, provided with a frontlet of steel. We find an instance at Arcot (Arkāṭ) in 1751, when “the parties who attacked the gates drove before them several elephants who, with large plates of iron fixed to their foreheads, were intended to break them down: but the elephants, wounded by the musquetry, soon turned and trampled on those who escorted them" (Orme, Mil. Trans., i, 194).
c16.7
Under Akbar the elephants ridden by the emperor were called *khāṣah* (special), and all others were arranged in groups of ten, twenty or thirty, called *ḥalqah* (ring, circle). In later reigns, (B.M. 1690, fol. 176*a*) the same classification was employed, with a rather more extended meaning, *khāṣah* then including all riding, and *ḥalqah* all baggage elephants. Manṣabdārs from 7000 down to 500 were required to maintain each one riding elephant, and in addition, five baggage elephants for every 100,000 *dām* of pay. As I understand the rule, these elephants belonged to the emperor, and were not even made over to the manṣabdār for use. The origin of this practice can, I fancy, be detected in a passage in the *Āīn*, i, 126 (see also i, 130), where Abu'l Faẓl says that Akbar "put several *ḥalqahs*" (groups of ten, twenty, or thirty elephants) "in charge of every grandee, and required him to look after them". In Akbar's time apparently the fodder was supplied by the State. I have already referred to this matter of *Khurāk-i-dawābb* under the heading of Pay (p. 20).
c16.8
Armandi's work on the military history of the elephant is almost entirely taken up with its use by the Greeks and Romans. The Moghul period occupies only fifteen pages, and there is nothing in those pages of any novelty. There is another work which covers in part the same ground, "Historical Researches on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans", by John Ranking, "resident upwards of twenty years in Hindoostan and Russia". The main object of this very discursive treatise, which ranges over India, Siberia, and Great Britain, seems to be to prove that the fossil bones of elephants found in Europe are the remains of those used in war and sport by the Romans and Moghuls. Sixty quarto pages are taken up by a life of Taimur. The most valuable part of the book is perhaps the description of the elephant (pp. 440–450). In spite of his “upwards of twenty years in Hindustān”, Ranking seems to have found some difficulty with the word *zanjīr*, a chain, as applied to an elephant. On p. 12 of his Introduction, he says “very frequent mention is made in Asiatic histories of chain elephants; which always means elephants trained for war; but it is not very clear why they are so denominated”. The explanation is fairly easy. The word *zanjīr* (chain) is here one of the fanciful catchwords attached to every being or thing in the Oriental art of *Siyāq*, that is, of accounting and official recording. Some fancied appropriateness was discerned in the epithet so used. Pearls were counted by *dānah*, seed, horses by *rās*, head, shields by *dast*, hand, bricks by *qālib*, mould, and so forth. For elephants the word is *zanjīr*, chain, which is no doubt a reference to the iron chain by which an elephant is hobbled when not in use. Having to speak of 100 elephants, a Persian or Indian scribe writes 100 *zanjīr-i-fil*, or in an account he would enter them thus; *Fīl*, *zanjīr*, 100.
c16.9
All elephants had names, as they have still. Horn, 79, gives several names from the *Akbarnāmah*; and again, p. 124, (Von Noer, Fr. trans., i, 171), he refers to Akbar’s own elephant *Āsmān Shukoh* (Heaven Dignity). Catrou, 255, has *Dalsingār* (Ornament of the Army) and *Aurang-gaj* (Throne-elephant). Danishmand Khan; entry of 26th Ramaẓān 1120 H., refers to *Fatḥ-gaj* (Victory Elephant), and we find in Elliot, viii, 95, *Mahāsundar* (Queen of Beauty) ridden by Nādir Shāh.
c16.10
After the introduction of fire-arms and the gradual extension of their use, elephants ceased, even in the East, to be of much value in the fighting line of battle. As I have said above, the chief men still rode them and displayed their standards on them. But this was more for the purpose of being seen and of acting as a centre and rallying point, than for any advantage derived from the elephants themselves, either through their strength or their courage. (To the same effect, see De la Flotte i, 258, and Cambridge, “War”, Introd. ix).
c16.11
Nizām-ul-Mulk seems to have maintained a large number of elephants even so late as about 1143 H. (1730-1). When on a campaign to the north of his dominions, in the direction of the Tapti, he had with him 1026 elephants, of which 225 were provided with armour, and presumably were used in battle (*Aḥwāl-i-khawāqīn*, 218b). On this occasion he made a curious trial of their staunchness or otherwise. In an open space near the river he ranged his guns in a line, (there were 44 *top* and 1225 *rahkalah*), and drew up his elephants opposite them. As the elephants advanced, the cannon were fired, supported by musketry. A few of the elephants stood fast, but the greater number fled for miles, the only result being that 306 foot-soldiers were trodden under foot.
c16.12
Towards the end of the period they were more largely employed as beasts of burden or as aids in the transport of heavy guns. Captain T. Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports”, 43, says that when used for the latter purpose they were furnished with a thick leather pad, covering the forehead, to prevent their being injured. The same work has also one of the best early accounts of the Indian elephant, wild and domesticated. In time of peace, as a means of display, for riding on, for shooting from, they have continued to be largely used. Ranking, 13, tells us that Āṣaf-ud-Daulah, Nawāb of Audh (1775--1797), kept considerably above 1000 elephants merely for pleasure. Still the gradual decline of the elephant, even for purposes of state and show, is proved unmistakeably by a recent paragraph in the Indian papers (“Pioneer Mail”, Sept. 27th 1894, p. 2). The Government “howdah-khānah” has been broken up, there being only two to three hundred elephants on the rolls all over India, nearly all of which are maintained for heavy batteries; the equipment at Agrah has been sold off, only the vice-regal howdah of silver being kept. We have thus travelled far from the days when one of our early commanders-in-chief, Colonel Richard Smith, “reviewed his troops from the houdar (*sic*) of his elephant” (Carraccioli, “Clive”, i, 133).