The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c23.44

c23.44

*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.