The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c22.18

c22.18

*Taulqamah* (تولقمہ) or *Taulghamah* (تولغمہ). This is a Chaghatāe word used to denote the troops posted in ambush to turn the enemy, or the action of turning the flank of the enemy (P. de C. “Dict.”, 243). Horn refers to it in several places (22, 23, 60, 73, 75). It was a manœuvre executed by Bābar (P. de C. “Mémoires”, i, 194) and is described by him as a sudden onslaught accompanied by a discharge of arrows, and followed by as sudden a retreat. From this passage Horn holds *taulqamah* to be the name of a manœuvre rather than of a particular part of the army. But in his diagram on p. 73, showing the position taken by Bābar before the battle of Pānīpat, he places a *taulqamah* on both the right and the left of the two wings. Thus the word must be accepted in both senses, namely as a manœuvre and as a section of the battle array. Khāfī Khān, ii, 876, when setting forth the divisions of Nizām-ul-mulk’s army before the fight with Sayyad Dilāwar ‘Alī Khān, 19th June 1720, says “Fatḥullah Khān, Khostī, and Rāo Raghubā, Binālkar, with a force of 500 horse were appointed the *taulqamah*”. This bears out the use of the word as one of the divisions of an army when in battle array. The manœuvre was one employed by Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī, without giving it this name, see p. 233. *Qazāqī* (p. 240) was also a movement of much the same sort.