The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c19.8

c19.8

Colour of tents. The tents of the emperor, his sons, and grandsons were of a red cloth, called *khārwah*, a stout canvas-like cotton cloth, dyed red with the root of the *āl* plant. Round the emperor’s tents was the enclosure called the *gulālbār*. Some of the great nobles such as the vice-gerent (*wakīl-i-mutlaq*) or the chief minister, (*Jamdat-ul-mulk*) were allowed *patāpatī* or striped tents, one red stripe and one white stripe alternately. *Patī* is H. for a strip of anything, (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 27*b* and Bernier, 366). The latter writer on p. 362 seems to imply that the imperial tents also were striped outside, but as his phrase is “ornamented with stripes”, perhaps the two statements are not absolutely conflicting.