The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c24.5

c24.5

¹ If we are to interpret Khūshḥāl Chand literally, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1014b, Ḥaidar Qulī Khān used a telescope to make out the enemy’s position. He says H. Q. K. at a distance of one farsakh (3 miles) saw the enemy’s army by the eye of a dūr-bīn (telescope). Or is it only his “farseeing eye” (chashm-i-dūrbīn)? A late writer (c. 1790) Rustam ‘Alī, Bijnorī, in his “History of the Rohelahs”, fol. 52b, states that at the battle of Panīpat in January 1761, Aḥmad Shāh, Durrānī, used a telescope (dūr-bīn) to watch the movements of the Mahrattahs. As he was writing thirty years after the event, I do not know whether he is to be relied on for such a detail. Also in the Ḥusain Shāhī of Imām-ud-dīn Chistī, fol. 65b, we have mention of the field telescope as used by Taimur Shāh, son of Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī: “The king mounted his elephant and slowly inspected the army. From time to time he raised his telescope to his eye” (qarīb-i-chasm-i-mubārik guzāsht). This telescope produced unexpected results for some of the commanders: they received a severe beating from the sticks of the nasaqchis sent to them. A learned man standing by the king, puzzled by this infliction of punishment, asked what it meant. Taimūr Shāh replied: “Through my telescope I saw that these commanders were seated under the shade of their horses, while the men of their regiments were exposed to the full heat of the sun. Tomorrow I will give them robes of honour to console them”.