The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c23: Chapter XXI. Conduct of a Battle
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c23
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Chapter XXI. Conduct of a Battle
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An open country was one of the first necessities for a successful action by a Moghul army, for without this their cavalry could not deploy freely (Horn, 21). Even ground covered with thick scrub was unfavourable, while hills and ravines still more hampered their movements. In a mountainous region they were at a terrible disadvantage; and their mail-clad horsemen were quite unequal to guerilla warfare. In their palmiest days they found themselves unable to reach the Pathāns amidst their rocks; and in their decadence they were helpless as children against the nimble Mahratta.
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Usually one, if not both, the armies made ready for battle by drawing out the guns in a long line and protecting them by earth works, the guns being also connected together by chains or hide-straps, to prevent the horsemen of the other side from riding through the line and cutting down the gunners. For instance, Dārā Shukoh used chains at Samūgaṛh in 1658 (Bernier, 47); and before the battle of the 22nd Rabīʿ i, 1161 H. (21st March 1748) with Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī, between Māchhīwārah and Sihrind, the imperialists "joined their cannon together by chains after the fashion of Rūm" (Anand Rām, India Office Ms. 1612, fol. 58a). Again, outside Lāhor, on Aḥmad Shāh's second invasion in 1165 H. (1751-2), the ṣūbahdār, Muʿīn-ul-mulk, resorted to *zanjīr-bandī* of his cannon (Ghūlām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah-i-S. A. nāmah*, fol. 79a). Nay, the practice survived to the very last, for we find it put in force by the Mahrattas at Laswārī in November 1803 (Thorn, “War”, 214). A good description of the *zanjīrah-band* (as he calls it) is given by Ashob, fol. 182*b*, with reference to Muhammad Shāh’s camp at Karnāl in the year 1151 H. (1739). “The *zanjīrah* band began at the last bastion of the town wall, a narrow path one or two yards wide being left on the bank of the canal for the passage of the guards (*chauki*) on their rounds (*shab-gard*). The swivel-guns (*rahkalah*) were planted four yards apart, with iron chains strongly attached to the wheels (*halqah*) of their carriages (*ārābah*). Between every two swivel-pieces were stationed five men with wall-pieces (*jazāīr*), having *pushtahs* (breastworks) thrown up (*andākhtah*), and their pieces ready, side by side, on their tripods”.
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If the guns were not too numerous, it was often the practice to post them behind the clay walls of the houses in some village; or to take up a commanding position on the top of an old brick-kiln; or a temporary entrenchment might be formed out of the earthen bank and ditch which usually surround a grove of mango trees ¹. A discharge of rockets from the artillery position generally began the action. Then the guns were brought into play. The fire never became, I expect, very rapid. Orme, for example, “Mil. Trans.”, i, 74, referring to as late as the middle of the 18th century, speaks of their firing once in a quarter of an hour. Khūshḥāl Chand’s remarks, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1016*b*, show that in 1721 the usual rate of fire of the heavy guns was one shot every three hours (one *pās*). He praises Ḥaidar Qulī Khān’s men for the energy with which they cooled their guns, loaded them, and fired them at intervals of three-quarters of an hour (*do-gharī* = 44 minutes). In Bābar’s time the rate of firing must have been very slow. In his battle near Kanauj, he says (P. de C., ii, 337) “Ustād Qulī Khān” (his *mīr ātash*) “made very good use of his artillery. The first day he discharged eight projectiles, the second he shot sixteen, and so continued for three or four days”. He used for this the piece called “the Cannon of the Conqueror”, the same that he had used in the battle against Sankā (i. e. the Rānā of Chitor), and to this it owed its name of *Ghāzī*. He had also mounted in a battery a still larger piece; but it burst at the first discharge.
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¹ Clive found one of these last very useful at the battle of Palāsi (Plassey), Orme, “Mil. Trans.”, ii, 172.
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Owing to the slowness of the draught oxen, who were unable to keep up with an advancing line, the artillery seldom took any further part in the battle, once the cavalry advance had passed beyond the entrenched position which had been taken up at the outset. From the same cause, it seldom happened that in case of a retreat or defeat the guns could be saved; they had to be spiked and left behind (Fitzclarence, 255); or as Blacker puts it (“War”, 128) “In an action the guns of an Indian army are generally immovable and their cavalry all motion. The object of the batteries is to fire as long as possible previously to being taken; and of the horse, to secure their retreat if discomfited, unfettered by any incumbrance”.
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While the artillery duel went on, the rest of the army was drawn up at some distance behind the guns in the order of battle already detailed, with standards displayed, drums beating, and horns blowing. “As the army took up its position for battle, the long brass horns (*karranai*) sounded and heralds¹ made proclamation” (*Sair-ul-Mutā-kharīn* text, 59, *Seir*, i, 208). Since, as Isaïah says, “every battle of the warrior is with confused noise”, some mention must be made here of battle cries. Horn, 23, tells us that in Bābar’s time there was a pass word to distinguish friend from foe; we hear nothing of such a practice in later times. But shouts and battle cries, coupled with abusive or taunting language, were copiously resorted to. Such cries were *Allāhu akbar*! (God is great) and *Dīn*! *Dīn*! (The faith! The faith!). Akbar used the cry of *Yā Muʿīn*! (O Helper!), Horn 109, quoting Budāonī, ii, 167, Lowe 170. The passage in Budāonī is:
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¹ Heralds, that is *naqīb*, Steingass 1421, a servant whose business it is to proclaim the titles of his master, and to introduce those who pay their respects to him. In 1870, on the day of the Duke of Edinburgh’s arrival at Benares, such a herald preceded the late Rajah Deo Narāyan Singh as he walked from the railway station to the river bank, and I heard the man shouting out the Rajah’s titles.
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*Kamān-i-kiyānī dar āmad ba-zih,*
*Yake guft “Ba-sitān”, yake guft “Dih”.*
“The royal bow was drawn to the full,
One called ‘Seize’, and another ‘Strike’”.
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In another place, Budāonī, i, 335, line 3 from end, speaks of *awāz-i-“Dih” o “Sitān” o “Ba-kash” o “Ba-zan”*, ghostly cries of “Strike”, “Seize” “Slay”, “Smite”, still supposed to be heard after night-fall from the battle-field of Pānīpat. Steingass, 547, has *dih*, strike thou, inf. *dādan*, and 548, *dihādih zadan*, to raise a battle cry. Khāfī Khān ii, 58, speaks of *ṣadāe “Ba-kash!” “Ba-kash” buland sākhtah*, “having raised loud cries of ‘Kill! Kill!’” We are reminded of Michael Drayton’s “Battaile of Agincourt”:
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“Whilst scalps about like broken potsherds fly
And ‘kill’, ‘kill’, ‘kill’, the Conquering English cry”.
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The most common cry in later times was *Dīn*! *Dīn*! *Muḥammad*! This was used by the Arabs at Nāgpur in 1817 (Fitzclarence, 103). It is what Robert Orme represented, “Mil. Trans.” ii, 339, as “the sound of Ding Mahomed”, or as a contemporary account of the battle of Baksar, Oct. 23rd 1764, says (Carraccioli, “Clive”, i, 57) “when our seapoys observed the enemy they gave them a ding or huzza”. One Mahratta war cry was “Gopāl! Gopāl!” (*Aḥwāl-ul-khawāqīn*, 207a); this is one of the names of Krishn. Another, according to Grant Duff, 109, was “Har, Har, Mahādeo”; these are also the names of Hindu gods.
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Cavalry charges. When the guns were supposed to have done their work and had sufficiently demoralized the opposing army, successive charges were delivered from first one wing, then the other. The horsemen began with matchlock fire and a discharge of arrows, finally coming to close quarters and hand to hand fighting with sword, mace, or spear. This latter was the *chapqalash*, evidently from چاپقولاش, P. de C. 271, a combat. Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī, seems in 1165 H. (1752) to have brought in a mode of attack, resembling the *taulqamah*, (ante, p. 228) in which the matchlock played a conspicuous part. He divided his horse into several bodies of one thousand each, all with matches ready lighted. The first body (*dastah*) rode hard at the enemy, delivered its fire, then galloped off again. A second body followed and did the same, and so on in succession (Ghūlām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah*, fol. 79*b*). At the battle of Pānīpat, fought on the 7th Jamādī ii, 1174 H. (13th January 1761), he repeated this manœuvre at a critical moment with conspicuous success, thereby throwing the Mahrattah centre into confusion, (*Tārīkh-i-Ḥusain Shāhī*, fol. 44*b*, 45*a*). In the *Maʿāsir-ul-umarā*, ii, 671, we are told that in the south of India it was the practice to make the first attack against the rear of an army.
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*Chevaux de frise* or Caltrops. According to the dictionary, Steingass, 460, *khasak* is the word for a caltrop thrown down to impede the movements of cavalry. I have seen only one mention of their employment, namely, in the *Akbarnāmah* (Lucknow edition, i, 75, five lines from foot) where Taimūr is said to have used them. But I have come across the word in Saʿdī’s lines quoted by Muḥammad Munʿim, Jaʿfarābādī, in his *Farrukh-nāmah*, fol. 27*b*, (1128 H.) and by ʿIshrat, Siyālkotī, in his *Nādirnāmah*, fol. 56*a* (1151 H.):
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ʿAdū rā ba jāe khasak zar ba rez,
Kih bakhshish kund kunad dandān-i-tez.
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“Before an enemy scatter gold, not spikes,
For gifts will blunt the sharpest teeth”.
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As to the distinctive difference between Moghul cavalry and that of European armies in their methods of fighting, Colonel Blacker has some judicious remarks ("War", 189). First of all, to show how formidable such solid but irregular bodies of cavalry seemed, he quotes Orme — "whosoever has seen a body of ten thousand horse advancing on the full gallop all together will acknowledge with the Marechals Villars and Saxe that their appearance is tremendous, be their courage or discipline what it will". Yet a few European squadrons could ride them down and disperse them. There was a want of sympathy between the parts, and this prevented one part depending upon the assistance of another. Owing to its size, an army of Moghul horse could, for the moment, meet the attack of a small compact body by a portion only of its total strength, and since as against disciplined cavalry an equal front of an irregular body of troops can never stand the shock of an attack, the Moghuls were bound to give way. The whole being thus broken up into parts, the parts avoided exposure to the brunt of the action; the part actually attacked fled, but the parts not menaced did not combine to fall on the rear of the pursuers. On the other hand, the disciplined troops divided, reassembled, charged and halted on a single trumpet-call, and threatened each single part in turn. But if the drilled cavalry tried skirmishing, it was soon found that the Moghul horse, apparently so despicable, were most formidable in detail. Wilks, iii, 392, is also of opinion that in single combat a European seldom equalled the address of a native horseman.
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The objective was the elephant of the opposite leader, and round it the fiercest of the battle raged. The centre was the ultimate object of attack and every effort was made to get closer and closer to it. As a rule, a battle in India was a series of isolated skirmishes, the contending bodies holding themselves at first at some distance from each other, and ending in close individual fighting. One European observer, writing at rather a late period, declares that numbers always decided the day, that the smaller invariably gave way before the larger force. This view may have some truth in it, but cannot be laid down as an axiom. Accident as frequently as not was decisive, while treacherous desertion or half-hearted support was a frequent occurrence.
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The most decisive point of a battle was, however, the death or disappearance of the leader. If he was known to have been killed, or could not be seen on his elephant, the troops desisted at once, and the greater part forthwith sought their own safety in flight (To this effect, see De la Flotte, i, 258, Orme, “Hist. Frag.”, 419, Cambridge, “War”, Introd. ix). In order to be conspicuous, the leader rode on an elephant, preceded by others bearing displayed standards. “Nothing was more common than for a whole army to turn its back the moment they perceived the general’s seat empty. But Europeans having these forty years past (1745—1785) gained many a battle by only pointing a four-pounder at the main elephant, Indian generals have abandoned the custom and now appear on horseback, nay have learned to discipline their troops and to have an artillery well served” (Seir, i, 10, note 20). The troops were very subject to panic and sudden flight; so much so that the fact was summed up in the proverb “one soldier makes off, and a whole army is done for” ¹.
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¹ Lashkarī garezad, o lashkare sar shavvad, Horn, 111, quoting Budāonī, ii, 196, line 4.
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Many battles were lost by the event above referred to, the death or disappearance of the leader. One instance is the loss of the battle of Samūgaṛh in 1658, because Dārā Shukoh descended from his elephant to mount a horse, at the entreaty of Khalīlullah Khān, with the object of pursuing the flying enemy (Bernier, 54). The loss or flight or capture of the leader also determined the great battles of Jājau (18th June 1707), Ḥaidarābād (13th January 1709), Lāhor, (15th-18th March 1712), Āgrah, (10th Dec. 1712) Ḥasanpur (13th Nov. 1720). In the first Prince Aʿzam Shāh and two sons were killed; in the second, Prince Kām Bakhsh was mortally wounded and made prisoner. At Lāhor the three younger brothers of Prince Jahāndār Shāh were defeated by him one after another and killed. At Āgrah, Jahāndār Shāh left the field of battle and fled in disguise to Dihli. At Ḥasanpur, Prince Ibrāhīm and the rebel wazīr, ʿAbdullah Khān, both became the prisoners of Muḥammad Shāh. On this head see also Horn, 46, and the cases there referred to, *Badshāhnāmah*, i, 512, last line, *Akbarnāmah*, iii, 54, line 12 and following. Once more, Sir Eyre Coote, “Minutes of Sel. Com”, 30th April 1772, reprint, 39, attributes the victory of Palāsī (Plassey) partly to the loss of one Meer Noodur, Sirāj-ud-Daulah’s head general. One of our cannon balls killed his elephant and then its rider was killed by a fall from it; this, and the death of the oxen dragging the guns, threw the enemy into the greatest confusion.
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*Untimely plundering.* There was also an undisciplined eagerness to break off and begin plundering before the day was really decided; and this habit often ended disastrously for those who had too easily assumed themselves to be the victors.
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*Single combat.* Horn, 46, quotes instances (*Akbarnamah*, iii, 97, 98 and Khāfī Khān, ii, 304, 305), 1st where Akbar challenged his opponent, Dāūd Lodī, to a fight in single combat; and 2ndly, in 1095 H., when M. Ibrāhīm, a general of the Ḥaidarābād rulers, made a similar offer to Prince Muʿazzam, eldest son of ʿAlamgīr. We may add to these the proposal sent in 1119 H. (1707) by the same Prince Muʿazzam (afterwards Shāh ʿĀlam Bahādur Shāh) to his next brother, M. Aʿzam Shāh, when they were both claimants for the throne, then vacant through the death of their father. It does not appear that any of these duels actually took place; the last most certainly did not.
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Challenges to single combat seem to have been not unusual between men of lower rank. We have an instance in Khāfī Khān, ii, 633, line 14, where he says that Sarwā, a robber associate of Pāprā, the toddy-seller, and one of the latter’s petty officers, Purdil Khān, had such a violent quarrel about each other’s soldierly qualifications, that they fought a duel (*jang-i-yakyangī*), “as is the custom in the Dakhin” (see *ante*, p. 185). Later on the practice showed itself in 1782, when the English under Sir Eyre Coote were opposed to the Mysore army under Ḥaidar ʿAlī. Individual horsemen would ride up within speaking distance and, with contemptuous abuse of a mode of warfare excluding individual prowess, would give a general challenge to single combat. Many times and with uniform success these were accepted by Lieut. Dallas, a man six foot high, who rode a coal-black horse, and formed a striking exception to the general inferiority of European to native swordsmen (Wilks, ii, 392).
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The *Utārā*. Dismounting, (from H. *utarnā*, to descend, dismount), or fighting on foot, was a peculiarity of Indian horsemen of which they were very proud. It was specially affected among Indian Mahomedans by the Bārhah Sayyads. H. M. Elliot, “M. Hist.”, i, Appendix, 537, speaks of this practice, and the allied one of Colligation in Fighting, as a custom of the Hindū tribes. The *Beglar-nāmah*, (Ell. i, 293) a history of Sind written about 1625, quotes Rānā Kumbā of Amarkoṭ as saying “it was an old-established custom amongst their tribes that both parties should alight from their horses and engage on foot”. Other instances are to be found in the same Appendix.
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Horn, 21, seems to be referring to this habit, when he says that the Moghul horseman had to serve sometimes as infantry. His reference in the *ʿĀlamgīr-nāmah*, 67, line 8, is undoubtedly a case of the *utārā*. It took place at the battle with Jaswant Singh, Rāthor, and it is specially said to be “the custom of the valorous reputation-seekers of Hindūstān”. Anand Rām, writing in 1161 H. (1748), I. O. L. Nº. 1612, fol. 87b, refers to it as a special feature of Rājput tactics. An instance of the practice by Rājputs will be found in Budāonī's account, text i, 368, Ranking, 478, of the battle fought in 1562 near Ajmer between Sher Shāh and Māl Deo, Rāthor. Again, we find it in use in 1151 H. (1739) at the battle near Karnāl, where Khān Daurān, Ṣamṣām-ud-daulah, was wounded and Muzaffar Khān killed. Ashob, fol. 227a, tells us that "they found the dead bodies of Mīrzā ʿAqil Beg, Kamalposh, and of others, his brethren, with their skirts tied together".
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This dismounting was resorted to at the crisis of a battle; and when the horsemen alighted, they bound themselves together by the skirts of their long coats. There are many references to this mode of fighting in the descriptions of battles in the early part of the 18th century. The Persians in the Indian service scoffed at this habit, and attributed it not to valour but to defective horsemanship. An anonymous writer of that nation remarks, "So when Hindūstānī cavalry go to battle, it is impossible for them to make a stand without suffering physically. If they are caught involved in a fight they have no resource left but to alight and let their horses go. Though they may be killed in either case, yet the chances are greater in favour of life when they alight. If they remain in the saddle, it is impossible for them to escape, for the horse, as likely as not, kills the rider before the enemy touches him. Anyhow, this manœuvre of utārā has the appearance of bravery and they boast of it. ("Memoirs of Dihli", trans. of Tārīkh-i-Farah Bakhsh, by W. Hoey, M. A., D. Lit., i, App. 8).
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Allied to what Elliot refers to as "colligation", or men binding themselves together when fighting, is an incident which I have only met with once. In 1165 H. (1752) at the turning-point of the battle fought outside Lāhor against Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī, the nāzim, Muʿīn-ul-mulk, and his chief captain, Bhikārī Khān, put each one foot in the other's stirrup, and thus, knee to knee, fought their way back to shelter in the fort of Lāhor (Ghulām ʿAlī Khān, Muqaddamah, fol. 79b).
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*Some other technical terms of fighting.* There are several words and phrases which often occur in accounts of battles, and seem to have, in that connection, a more or less technical meaning. These I note, with such explanations as occur to me.
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*Harakat-i-mazbūḥī.* This means literally the expiring throes of a slaughtered animal, but seems used to express a feeble and hesitating attack, which is never carried home. In Budāonī, ii, 234, occurs the following passage: *o sare chand az fidaiyān-i-Rānā, kih maḥal-i-ū-rā muḥāfazat mī-kardand, o sare chand-i-dīgar, suknah-i-muʿābad, kih majmūʿ bist kas bāshand, binābar-i-rasm i-qadīm-i-Hindūstān, kih waqt i-khālī sākhtan-i-shahr, ba jihat-i-raʿāyat-i-nāmūs, kashtah mī shavvand, az andarūn-i-khānahhā o butkhānahhā bar āmdah, harakat-i-mazbūḥī kardah, ba zakhm-i-shamsher-i-jān-sitān jān ba mālikān-i-dozakh sipurdand.* Lowe, 240, renders it thus: "And certain of the devoted servants of the Rānā, who were the guardians of his palace, and some inhabitants of the temple, in all amounting to twenty persons, in accordance with an ancient custom of the Hindūs that when they are compelled to evacuate a city, they should be killed in order to save their honour, coming out of their houses and temples performed the sacrificial rite and by the stroke of their life-taking swords committed their souls to the keepers of hell". See also Lowe's note. I take this passage as meaning, on the contrary, that the men made a feeble purposeless onslaught (*harakat-i-mazbūḥī*), and were slain not by their own swords, but by those of their Moslem opponents.
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Again in the *Maāsir-i-ʿĀlamgīrī*, 299, at the taking of Gūlkandah, 24th Zu'l Qaʿdah 1098 H., 9th Sept. 1687, we have the expression used in its literal sense of a feeble useless effort. When the besiegers entered that fort, their leader seized the king *be ān kih ū o hamrāhān-ash harakat-i-mazbūḥī namāyand*, "before he and his companions could make any fruitless effort". As the prisoners thus made were Mahomedans, it can hardly be supposed that the writer means they were about to perform a “sacrificial rite”, that is, in other words, the Hindū jūhar, or immolation of themselves and family. In the Maāsir-ul-umarā, i, 844, the words are used to describe the opposition offered in 1153 H. (1740) by Sarfarāz Khān, nāzim of Bengal, to the invasion of the usurper, ‘Alī Wirdī Khān, Mahābat Jang. Wilks, ii, 552, attributes to Tīpū Sultān’s personal malignity the use of this phrase for describing the “movements of the enemy”. No doubt, contempt is included in the meaning, but it is a regular stock expression, used by all writers when describing the movements of troops. Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1010b uses it in its strictly literal signification with reference to the execution of Rajah Ratn Chand (1133 H.). Once more he uses it, rather indefinitely, on fol. 1015b.
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Qazāqī. The word comes, of course, from qazāq, Steingass, 968, a partisan, a light armed soldier, a highway robber, a Cossack. Qazāqī he defines as a military incursion, guerilla warfare, free-booting, brigandage. But in Indian writings it seems to me to have a more definite application, and is used for something equivalent to a loose attack in open order, followed by retreat as soon as the attack has been delivered, in short something the same as the taulqamah movement already referred to (ante, p. 227). Modern writers speak, I notice, of the Cossack “lava-like” form of attack, and I suppose the above-named is what they mean. Horn, 64, rejects, and I think rightly, the use of this word as one of the divisions of an army, but he does not give any definition to replace the one rejected. I fancy that Dr. Oskar Mann’s reading of farāqī فراقي, on p. 95, line 6, of Mujmil-ut-tārīkh might be better قزاقي, qazāqī.
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Dar goshah-i-kamān zadan. This is in the literal sense of the words “to take in the corner of a bow”. But the words seem to have also the specific meaning of surrounding and overpowering any body of men.
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*Talaqī-i-farīqain*, “Meeting of the two parties”, denotes the fact that the two armies are in touch and within striking distance of each other.
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*Siyāh namūdan*, lit. “to show black”, is the phrase for the first faint signs of an enemy’s appearance in the distance.
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*Hallah*, said by Steingass 1506 to be from *hamlah*, a fight, was the general word for an on-rush or charge.
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*Yūrish*, Steingass, T., 1537, P. de C., 545 یورش, *marche*, *expédition*, was also used in the same sense as *hallah*.
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*Hai,at-i-majmū‘ī* was also a word for some sort of combined advance. Literally it means *hai,at*, form, mode, *majmū‘ī*, collective, aggregate. I think this had a technical use, but I have failed to satisfy myself as to its exact meaning.
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*Chapkunchi*, a reconnaissance, Horn 21, I have never seen. *Chapqalash* I have already referred to (ante, p. 233); *Turk-tāzī* (Turk-galloping) was an expression for hard or expeditious riding. The words *Uimāq* or *Aimāq*, Horn, 21, Blochmann *Āīn*, i, 371, note, were not in use in the later period.
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*Sipāhī-i-fālez*. This phrase, literally “soldiers of the melon bed”, has often puzzled me. It is used as a description of a defeated, non-resisting body of troops. Presumably the metaphor means that in such a case their heads are as easily cut off as melons can be gathered from a melon-bed. Mīrzā Ḥaidar (Ross and Elias, 323) puts words something like it into the mouth of a prince, looking on at a review of raw undisciplined troops: “with such a troop as this it would be dangerous to try and rob a kitchen-garden (*pālīz*)”.
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*Defeat*. In case of a reverse the heavy guns were generally abandoned, as they could not be removed. We are told that in such cases they were spiked and rendered useless (Blacker, “War”, 128). One instance where this was done was at Gūlkandah in 1097 H. (1685-6) by ‘Ālamgīr, Khāfī Khān, ii, 355, last line, *mīkh zadah nābūd sākhtand*. Generally, on the retreat of an Indian army, so great was the dispersion that some days elapsed before the direction of flight taken by the principal body could be ascertained. There were no dispositions taken to cover its escape, no stratagems to mask its route, cover its baggage, gain an advance, lay an ambuscade, or mislead a pursuer. All impediments to flight were successively abandoned, and a retreat became a *sauve qui peut*. This result is attributable partly to the want of discipline and to defective leadership, which leaves every individual to rely more on himself than on his commander (Blacker, “War”, 162).
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*Jūhar*. This well-known Hindū practice of killing women and children to prevent their falling into the enemy’s hand was once, I find, proposed for adoption by a small body of Mughals under Khwājah Asa‘d Khān (son of Mubāriz Khān), when surrounded hy an overwhelming body of Mahrattahs (*Aḥwāl-i-khawāqin*, fol. 194*a*).
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*Proclamation of Victory*, Horn, 109. When the day was won, the victor ordered his drums to strike up and his horns to blow, both to announce the victory to his own side and to produce further disheartenment among his opponents. Sometimes, to re-animate the drooping energies of his men, a general would order his drums to beat as for a victory, in the hope that they would be cheated into the belief that the day was going favourably for them, and thus inspirited, might turn an imagined into a real success.
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*Pillars of heads*. It was the custom for a subordinate commander to accompany his despatch announcing any success with as many heads of the slain as could be collected. This was a survival of the Central Asian practice of erecting a pillar or pyramid formed of the heads of the dead enemy. There are two cases in Budāonī, ii, 17, 169, Lowe, 10, 172. In 964 H. (1556-7) Akbar built a pyramid of heads at Pānīpat; again in 981 H. (1573-4) near Aḥmadābād, he did the same. There are also several instances of heads being sent in during the reigns of ‘Ālamgīr and Bahādur Shāh. For example, Dānishmand Khān tells us, entry of 18th Ramaẓān 1119 H., 12th Dec. 1707, that an imperial officer, after taking the Jāt fort of Sansanī, near Mathurā, sent in one thousand heads in ten carts, along with the weapons taken. Nicolāo Manucci also speaks, Phillipps 1945, Part i, p. 85, of having seen piles of heads, once as many as ten thousand heads; and in his many journeys between Āgrah and Dihlī (1656—1680), he always saw fresh heads in the niches made for them on the pillars. In 1122 H. (1711) Mḥd Amīn Khān, when announcing the capture of Sihrind, sent in six cart-loads of heads, and reported that the rest had been built into a pillar (minār), Kām Rāj, *Ibrat-nāmah*, fol. 43b. Again in 1715, in Farrukhsīyar’s reign, between two and three hundred heads carried on poles graced the triumphal entry into Dihlī of the victors of Gurdāspur. And, according to the *Akhbār-i-Muḥabbat*, fol. 279, pillars of heads were constructed by Ja‘far Khān in 1124 H. (1712) on the edge of the high road to Hindustān, just outside Murshidābād, after he had defeated Rashīd Khān. Ashob, fol. 111b, speaks of Sa‘ādat Khān Burhān-ul-mulk sending to Court the heads of the slain after his defeat of Bhagwant Singh, Khīchar, in 1148 H. (Oct. 1735). Abdullah Khān, Firūz Jang, who died in 1054 H., 1644-5, boasted, according to the *Ma‘āsir-ul-umarā* ii, 788, that he had cut off 200,000 heads, and all the way from Āgrah to Paṭnah had built pillars with them.