The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.44

c26.44

*Keys of Fortresses.* Horn, 133, quoting Elliot, v, 176, says that the fortresses had gold or silver keys; in this particular passage the place referred to is Ranthambhūr. An instance of this practice in Persia is found in *Mujmil-ut-Tārīkh-i-baʿd-nādirīyah* (ed. Oskar Mann) 85, line 21. We are told here that the keys of Naishapur were delivered to Aḥmad Shāh, Durrānī, when peace was made. Again, we have a somewhat earlier instance. In 1119 (1707) when Mīr Wais, Ghilzai, killed Gurgīn Khān, Gurji (Georgian), governor on behalf of Sulṭān Ḥusain Mīrzā, Ṣafawī, and took possession of Qandahār, he sent his submission to Shāh ʿĀlam Bahādur Shāh, together with a golden key (*M.-ul-u.*, iii, 702). Another Central Asian practice is to be found in *Mujmil-ut-tārīkh baʿd Nādirīyah*, p. 88, line 2, the planting of a flag on the bastion of a fort as soon as it was taken. I have found no mention of this in India. As showing the importance attached in India to the keys of a fortress, we may instance the trouble taken by Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr to make his father, Shāhjahān, surrender those of Āgrah, sending his eldest son, Sulṭān Muḥammad, to demand them (Bernier, 63). In 1707, Mḥd Yār Khān, the *qilaʿhdār* of Dihlī, sent his son with the keys of the fort to Bahādur Shāh in token of submission (Khāfī Khān, ii, 577). And we read in Ghulām ʿAlī Khān’s *Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿĀlam-nāmah*, fol. 61*b*, that during Nādir Shāh’s invasion (1738), Burhān-ul-mulk and Tahmās, Jalāir, were sent ahead from Karnāl with a note from Muḥammad Shāh addressed to Lutfullah Khān, Ṣādiq, (*ṣūbahdār* of the province), directing him to give up the keys of the fortress at Dihlī to the Shāh’s agent, which was done accordingly. Then, when Najaf Khān took Āgrah from the Jāts in 1773, the messenger conveying the news to Dihlī “carried with him the keys of the fort to be laid at His Majesty’s feet”, W. Francklin, *Shāh Aulum*, 53.