The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c24.21

c24.21

Reports of Battles. Somewhat in the same way that after a battle a modern general sends off a despatch to his superiors, a Moghul commander prepared and submitted a report (ʿarzah-dāsht) to the emperor. Often he also drew up a separate description of the fight for distribution to his friends and equals. These latter papers were styled tūmār, or roll, (a word which had another technical signification in the finance department). If the emperor was especially satisfied with any general, he gave orders that the victory should be recorded in the imperial diary of proceedings (the wāqiʿah), equivalent to our gazette. Many specimens of battle reports sent in from Bundelkhand by Muḥammad Khān, Bangash, will be found in Ṣāḥib Rāe's Khujistah Kalām; and the same work contains a tūmār circulated by Nizām-ul-mulk after his victory over Sayyad Dilāwar ʿAlī Khān, Rājah Bhīm Singh, Hāḍā, and others.