The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c21.2

c21.2

In detailed histories where events are recorded day by day, such as Dānishmand Khān's *Bahādur Shāh nāmah* and Kāmwar Khān's *Tazkirah-i-salātīn-i-chaghataiyah*, the length of each day's march is stated with great precision in *jarībī* or measured *kos*. This precision is accounted for, no doubt, by a statement found in Firishtah, *Maqālah* ii, p. 212, line 1. He tells us that a *tanāb-i-paimāish* followed the army, and by it the distance traversed was measured. The introduction of the practice into India was attributed to Bābar. One hundred *tanāb* made one *tanāb* (the word is *kos*, in the quotation of the passage to be found on fol. 38*a* of B.M. Or. 2005, *Tārīkh-i-Aḥmad Shāhī* c. 1167 H.). Each *tanāb* was of 40 yards (*gaz*) and each *gaz* was of nine average fists (*musht*). This would make a *kos* of 4000, instead of 5000 *gaz*, as the later reckoning was. It was apparently Akbar who lengthened the *tanāb* from 40 to 50 *gaz* (*Āīn* (Jarrett) ii, 414).