The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c5.2

c5.2

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.