The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c24.2

c24.2

For the first of these recourse might be had to Niʿamat Khān (afterwards Dānishmand Khān), poetically Āʿlī. This well known poet and literary man, who died 30th Rabīʿ i, 1122 H., 28th May 1710, was appointed historiographer by Bahādur Shāh, and has left two descriptions of the battle at Jājau, in which his patron defeated a brother, Aʿzam Shāh, and obtained the throne. That in the *Bahādur Shāh-nāmah* is the simpler; the other, a separate work known as the *Jang-nāmah*, is written in the florid, full-blown manner which was considered requisite for such show pieces. It is a very clever performance; an admirable specimen of a detestable *genre*. The proportion of bread to sack may be known from the fact that when, after transcribing the whole piece, I proceeded to make an excerpt of the bare facts, I found that they occupied only one-fifth of the original space.