The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c5: Chapter III
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c5
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Chapter III
c5.1
The promise of honorary distinctions has been in all ages and in all countries one of the most potent agencies employed to incite men to exertion. We have our medals, crosses, orders, and peerages. The Moghul sovereigns were even more ingenious in converting things mostly worthless in themselves into objects to be ardently striven for and dearly prized. Among these were: (1) Titles; (2) Robes of Honour; (3) Gifts of Money and other articles; (4) Kettle-drums; (5) Standards and Ensigns.
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1. *Titles.* — The system of entitlature was most elaborate and based on strict rule. This subject belongs, however, to the general scheme of government, and need not be set forth at length here. Suffice it to say, that a man would begin by becoming a Khān or Lord (added to his own name). After that, he might receive some name supposed to be appropriate to his qualities, coupled with the word Khān, such as Ikhlāṣ Khān, Lord Sincerity; an artillery officer might be dubbed Ra‘d-andāz Khān, Lord Thunder-thrower, or a skilful horseman, Yakah-Tāz Khān, Lord Single Combat, and so on. Round such a title as a nucleus, accreted all the remaining titles with which a man might from time to time be invested. As the empire declined in strength, so did the titles increase in pomposity, and long before the end of the dynasty the discrepancy between a man's real qualities and his titles was so great as often to be ridiculous. Still, these titles were never given quite at random, nor were they self-adopted. Yet I read quite recently in a history of India, by a well-known and esteemed author, that one governor of Bengal was “a Brahman convert calling himself Murshid Qulī Khān.” Now Murshid Qulī Khān no more called *himself* by that name than has Earl Roberts of Candahar called himself by the title he bears. Both titles were derived from the accepted fountain of honour, the sovereigns of the states which those bearing them respectively served.
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(2) *Robes of Honour.* — The *khila‘t* was not peculiar to the military department. These robes of honour were given to everyone presented at court. Distinction was, however, made according to the position of the receiver. There were five degrees of *khila‘t*, those of three, five, six, or seven pieces; or they might as a special mark of favour consist of clothes that the emperor had actually worn (*malbūs-i-khāṣ*). A three-piece *khila‘t*, given from the general wardrobe (*khila‘t-khānah*), consisted of a turban (*dastār*), a long coat with very full skirts (*jāmah*), and a scarf for the waist (*kamrband*). A five-piece robe came from the *toshah-khānah* (storehouse for presents), the extra pieces being a turban ornament called a *sarpech* and a band for tying across the turban (*bālāband*). For the next grade a tight-fitting jacket with short sleeves, called a Half-sleeve (*nīmah-astīn*), was added. A European writer, Tavernier (Ball, i, 163), thus details the seven-piece *khila‘t*: (1) a cap, (2) a long gown (*ka‘bah*), (3) a close-fitting coat (*arkalon*), which I take to be *alkhāliq*, a tight coat, (4) two pairs of trousers, (5) two shirts, (6) two girdles, (7) a scarf for the head or neck.
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(3) *Gifts, other than money.* — These were naturally of considerable variety. I have drawn up the following list from Dānishmand Khān’s history of the first two years of Bahādur Shāh’s reign (1708—1710): Jewelled ornaments, weapons, principally swords and daggers with jewelled hilts, *pālkīs* with fringes of gold lace and pearls, horses with gold-mounted and jewelled trappings, and elephants. The order in which the above are given indicates roughly both the frequency with which these presents were granted and the relative value set upon them, beginning with those most frequently given and the least esteemed.
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(4) Kettledrums. — As one of the attributes of sovereignty, kettledrums were beaten at the head of the army when the emperor was on the march; and in quarters they were beaten every three hours at the gate of his camp. The instruments in use, in addition to the drums, will be found in the *Āīn-i-Akbarī* (Blochmann, i, 51). As a mark of favour, kettledrums (*naqqārah*)¹ and the right to play them (*naubat*) might be granted to a subject. But he must be a man of the rank of 2000 *suwār* or upwards. As an invariable condition, moreover, it was stipulated that they should never be used where the emperor was present, nor within a certain distance from his residence. Marching through the middle of Dihli with drums beating was one of the signs by which Sayyad Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān, Amīr-ul-Umarā, notified defiance of constituted authority, when he returned from the Dakhin in 1719, preparatory to dethroning the Emperor Farrukhsīyar. The drums when granted were placed on the recipient's back, and, thus accoutred, he did homage for them in the public audience hall. In Lord Lake's case the investment was thus carried out: "Two small drums of silver, each about the size of a thirty-two pound shot, the apertures covered with parchments, are hung round the neck of the person on whom the honour is conferred, then struck a few times, after which drums of the proper size are made." — Thorn, "War," 356. There is on record another instance of miniature drums being used in this way, as a symbol. When conferring on him the right to the *naubat*, Aḥmad Shāh (1748—1754) gave such drums to Dāīm Khān, a favorite chelā of Aḥmad Khān, Bangash, of Farrukhābād. (“Bangash Nawābs,” Journal A. S. B., 1879, p. 161.)
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¹ Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin ms. 495, fol. 1126b uses the word *kūrkah*, (Steingass, 1060, T, "a big drum").
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(5) *Flags and Ensigns.* — The flags and ensigns displayed, along with a supply of spare weapons, at the door of the audience hall and at the entrance to the emperor’s encampment, or carried before him on elephants, were called collectively the Qūr (Pavet de Courteille, “Dict.,” 425, ceinture, arme, garde), and their charge was committed to a responsible officer called the Qūr-begī. An alternative general name sometimes employed was māhī-o-marātib (Fish and Dignities), or more rarely, the panjah (literally, Open Hand). It is, no doubt, the Qūr which Gemelli Careri describes thus (French ed. iii, 182): “Outside the audience tent I saw nine men in red velvet coats embroidered with gold, with wide sleeves and pointed collars hanging down behind, who carried the imperial ensigns displayed at the end of pikes. The man in the middle carried a sun, the two on each side of him had each a gilt hand, the next two carried horse-tails dyed red. The remaining four, having covers on their pikes, it could not be seen what it was they held.”
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In the Āīn, i, 50, we are told of eight ensigns of royalty, of which the first four were reserved exclusively for the sovereign. The use of the others might, we must assume, be granted to subjects. The eight ensigns are — (1) Aurang, the throne; (2) Chatr, the State umbrella; (3) Sāibān or Āftābgīr, a sunshade; (4) Kaukabah (plate ix, Nº. 2); (5) ʿAlam, or flag; (6) Chatr-tok, or yak-tails; (7) Tūman-tok, another shape of yak-tails; (8) Jhanda, or Indian flag. To these we must add (9) Māhī-o-marātib, or the fish and dignities.
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The origin and meaning of the different ensigns displayed by the Moghul Emperors in India have been thus described, Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ, fol. 5: —
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(1) Panjah, an open hand, is said to mean the hand of ʿAlī. Taimūr ordered it to be carried before him for a charm and as a sacred relic. It was said that he captured it when he overcame the Siyāhposh tribe. In 1753 Gentil saw four different “pondjehs” (ie. *panjahs*) carried on horseback in Ṣalābat Jang’s cavalcade; they were copper hands fixed on the end of a staff (“Mémoires,” 61).
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(2) *‘Alam*, a flag or standard. — This was supposed to be the flag of Ḥusain, and obtained by Taimūr at Karbalah. To it he attributed his victory over Bāyazīd, the Kaisar of Rūm.
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(3) *Mīzān*, a balance, was a reference to the equal scales of Justice, and was adopted as having been the emblem of Nūshīrwān the Just. There is a figure on a plate in Gentil’s “Mémoires,” which is probably the *Mīzān*.
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(4) *Āftāb*, or Sun, was obtained from the fire-worshippers when they were conquered; it was an article used in their worship.
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(5, 6) *Azhdaha-paikar*, Dragon-face. — From the time of Sikandar of the Two Horns, the rajahs of Hind had worshipped this emblem in their temples, and when Taimūr made his irruption into India it was presented to him as an offering. It consisted of two pieces, one carried in front and the other behind the emperor.
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(7) *Māhī*, or Fish, was said to have been an offering from the islands of the ocean, where it was worshipped.
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(8) *Qumqumah* (Steingass, 989, a bowl, a jug, a round shade, a lantern). — This also was obtained from the Indian rajahs. The *Āīn-i-Akbarī*, i, 50, has *kaukabah* for apparently the same thing (see figure Nº. 2 on plate ix). There is also what looks like the *kaukabah* in a plate in Gentil’s “Mémoires.” The definition of *kaukabah* in Steingass, 1063, corresponds with the figure in the *Āīn*, viz. “a polished steel ball suspended from a long pole and carried as an ensign before the king.” Careri, iii, 182, tells us that he saw a golden ball hanging by a chain between two gilt hands, and adds that “it was a royal ensign carried on an elephant when the army was on the march.”
c5.17
All these emblems, we are told, were carried before the emperor as a sign of conquest over the Seven Climes, or, in other words, over the whole world.
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*Māhī-o-marātib*. — Some words must be added with special reference to this dignity, which was borne on elephants or camels in a man's retinue. It was one of the very highest honours, as it was not granted to nobles below the rank of 6000 *zāt*, 6000 *suwār* (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 3). *Māhī* (literally, a fish), was made in the figure of a fish, four feet in length, of copper gilt, and it was placed horizontally on the point of a spear (*Seir*, i, 218, note 150, and 743, note 51). Steingass, 1,147, defines *māhī-marātib* as “certain honours denoted by the figure of a fish with other insignia (two balls).” But in careful writers I have always found it as *māhī-o-marātib*, “fish and dignities,” and, as I take it, the first word refers to the fish emblem and the second to the balls or other adjuncts which went with it. The *marātib* Thorn, “War,” 356, describes as a ball of copper gilt encircled by a *jhālar* or fringe about two feet in length, placed on a long pole, and, like the *māhī*, carried on an elephant. Can this be Gemelli Careri’s “golden ball”? Perhaps it was identical with the *qumqumah* or *kaukabah* already described above. The translator of the *Seir-Mutaqherin*, i, 218, note 150, tells us that the fish was always accompanied by the figure of a man’s head in copper gilt. This must have been in addition to the gilt balls. The *māhī*, as conferred on Lord Lake on the 14th August, 1804 (*Thorn*, “War,” 356), is described as “representing a fish with a head of gilt copper and the body and tail formed of silk, fixed to a long staff and carried on an elephant.” James Skinner, who recovered Mahādajī-Sendhia’s *māhī-o-marātib* in a fight with the Rajputs, speaks of it as “a brass fish with two chourees (horse-hair tails) hanging to it like moustachios” (Fraser, “Memoir,” i, 152). Gentil, “Mémoires,” 62, calls the *māhī* simply “the head of a fish on the end of a pole.” As a sign of the rarity of this dignity, he adds that while in the Dakhin (1752—1761) he only saw four of them.
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*Sher-marātib*, or lion dignity. — This is a name only found, so far as I know, in Gentil, “Mémoires,” 62; and he only saw it displayed by Ṣalābat Jang, nāzim of the Dakhin. At the head of the dedication of the above work to the memory of Shujā‘-ud-Daulah, are the figures of two elephants; one of which bears a standard that is most likely identical with this *Sher-marātib*. The flag bears a lion embroidered on it, and the head of the staff is adorned with the figure of a lion.
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*‘Alam*. — The flags seem to have been triangular in shape, either scarlet or green in colour, having a figure embroidered in gold and a gold fringe. The staff was surmounted by a figure corresponding to the one embroidered on the flag. A plate in Gentil’s “Mémoires” shows four of these embroidered emblems — 1st, a *panjah*, or open hand; 2nd, a man’s face with rays; 3rd, a lion (*sher*); and 4th, a fish. A flag, or *‘alam*, could be granted to no man under the rank of 1000 *suwār*.
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*Āftābgīrī*. — This sun screen (*āftāb*, sun; *gīr*, root of *giriftan*, to take), shaped like an open palm-leaf fan, was also called *Sūraj-mukhī* (Hindī, literally, sun-face). By the Moghul rules it could only be granted to royal princes (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 3). In the eighteenth century, however, the Mahrattas adopted it as one of their commonest ensigns, and even the smallest group of their cavalry was in the habit of carrying one.
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*Tūman-togh*. — This is one of the two *togh* mentioned in Akbar’s list, *Āīn* i, 50, and figured on plate ix of that volume. Pavet de Courteille, “Dict.,” 236, has توغ (*togh*), “étendard se composant d’une queue قطاس (*qaṭās*) ou bœuf de montagne (*i. e.* yak) fixée à une hampe, au dessus d’un pavillon triangulaire.” This yak’s-tail standard was not unfrequently granted to officers of rank, by whom it was esteemed a high honour. The *togh* consisted generally of three tails attached to a cross-bar, which was fixed at the end of a long pole or staff.
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*Summary.* — Thus, apart from titles or money rewards, or ordinary gifts, a man might be awarded any of the following honorary distinctions, of a more permanent character — (1) the right to carry a flag or simple standard, (2) the right to display a yak-tail standard, (3) the right to use kettle-drums and beat the *naubat*, (4) the right to display the fish and its accompanying emblems, (5) the right to use a litter adorned with gold fringes and strings of pearls. Of course, all these things were dependent on the caprice of the monarch; for in the Moghul, like in all Oriental states — *Ba yak nukṭah maḥram* (محرم) *mujrim* (مجرم) *shavvad*: By one spot “confidant” becomes “criminal.”